Once upon a law, there were two brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, who cared deeply about what was right and what was wrong. Following their father’s example, the brothers studied law under the renowned jurist, Professor Friedrich Carl von Savigny. The Grimm Brothers began collecting folk stories while they were still in law school. These tales were originally intended for other scholars. The brothers searched for social rules as depicted through the fantastical scenarios of fairy tales and yes, law was omnipresent in popular culture… fairy tales were no exception. So how was the legal culture of the time reflected in the fairy tales the Brothers Grimm published?

The Maastricht University Library, the Faculty of Law, and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences bring you an exhibition highlighting the relationship between the stories of the Brothers Grimm and their lesser-known works about language and law.

The exhibition focuses on the perspective of the Grimm brothers as legal scholars, and through that lens, underlying legal customs become visible in the themes of their most famous fairy tales. In fact, the Brothers Grimm began collecting fairy tales as a way to map these customs for the benefit of other scholars; their original intention had nothing to do with telling stories to children. This exhibition marks the first ever collaboration at Maastricht University between the library’s Special Collections, the Faculty of Law, and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

This project shows the relationship between the stories of the Brothers Grimm and their work on language and justice. It explores in an innovative way how the Brothers represented the legal culture of their time through storytelling and their studies of language. The project focuses on the legal environment of the brothers, on their stories and the underlying legal customs they reveal, on how language plays a key role in legal culture and how it is closely linked to traditions and stories. Fairy tales and objects act as a gateway to law and language.

Rare books exhibited

Rare legal books and highly-prized illustrated fairy tales from the so-called Golden Age of Illustration (1880s-1930s) are on display, and there is an interactive panel where one can wear Little Red Riding Hood’s hooded cape and take a selfie with a custom fairy tale backdrop. The exhibit highlights the breadth of the Golden Age of Illustration collection held by Maastricht University Special Collections, a treasured assortment of more than fifty of the most beautifully illustrated children’s books from the turn of the twentieth century.

This exhibit will give visitors a new perspective on their favourite fairy tales, and can be visited from 1 September to 22 December 2022 at the Main Administrative Building of Maastricht University (Minderbroedersberg 4-6). Are you not able to visit the physical exhibition? Then visit the exhibition digitally.