In Memoriam
Victor Tau Anzoátegui
Víctor Tau Anzoátegui, who died June 11, 2022, in Buenos Aires, was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Society in 2021. This honor must have pleased Tau very much. He had spent his academic lifetime building bridges among schools, disciplines, and silos of legal history in the Spanish-speaking world and had justly garnered numerous awards and recognitions for this work. That his final public honor as a legal historian came from the English-speaking world is a fitting tribute to his worldwide stature as a legal historian and an example of the Society’s wisdom and global reach.
Born in Buenos Aires on September 18, 1933, Tau was an internationally acclaimed historian of Latin American law, Argentine law, and Spanish colonial law, known as derecho indiano. He received his law degree in 1957 and research doctorate in law and social sciences in 1963, both from the University of Buenos Aires. As Professor of the History of Argentine Law, he taught legal history in the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires during the 1980s and 1990s. Tau continued teaching graduate students and was also a professor at the Catholic University of Argentina.
On the page, in the classroom, and in conversation with students, Tau taught. Students described him as a critical and demanding reader of their works who led them to new levels of scientific rigor, precision, and expression. He encouraged his students to take on lesser-known topics that might disrupt the status quo.
He was recognized as a Superior Researcher (Investigador Superior) by the Argentine Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET). In addition to occupying seat 40 in the Argentine National Academy of History, where he served as president from 1994 to 1999, he was a member of the national historical academies of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Spain, and Uruguay.
Through his many books, Tau transformed legal history by applying innovative methodologies, exploring new sources, conducting detailed archival work, and bringing new sets of questions to the enterprise. Since 1997, his book, Nuevos horizontes en el estudio histórico del derecho indiano (New Horizons in the Historical Study of Derecho Indiano), has served as an intellectual fulcrum upon which the lever of academic debate about derecho indiano – Spanish colonial law – rises and falls. Noting the emphasis placed on sources, institutions, and public law by established scholars in the field, the work suggested the exploration of private law and methodology rooted in sociological and newer historical approaches. Thus, derecho indiano should be viewed in light of the prevailing legal culture. Tau illustrated this new approach by offering studies of the social dimension of legal practice, provincial and local variations in derecho indiano, the relationship between derecho indiano and Indigenous communities, and the continuity of derecho indiano after the colonial period. The book also tackled the difficult and lasting question of defining derecho indiano, a debate that surfaces at every gathering of its students. Tau published the book while in his mid-sixties. It serves as a reminder that elegant analysis, fresh approaches, and path-breaking contributions are available at any stage of our careers.
He once mentioned to me that his two-volume edited study of Argentine juridical thought from 1901 to 1945 was one of the works with which he was most pleased. This work, published in 2007, provides selected passages from jurists with substantive introductions by noted legal historians. His introduction to the entire work explores the legal culture and thought of these generations of lawyers while noting that “politicians, journalists, administrators, and government functionaries” exuded such legal training. Indeed, the formation of Argentine juridical thought was not only shaped in the classroom but also through a culture of books and reading, networks and social interactions, and hospitality and travel. By shifting the focus to “thought” or “mentality,” Tau expanded the range of enquiry to provide new and profound observations on the changes in Argentine legal culture in this understudied and essential period.
There were many other contributions. He directed the Historia de la Nación Argentina published by the National Academy of History and Planeta. He and co-author Eduardo Martiré published a classic study of the legal institutions of Argentina, the Manual de Historia de las Instituciones Argentinas. Together they also established the Jornadas de Historia del Derecho Argentino, important gatherings of Argentina’s legal historians.
Active in many scholarly organizations, Tau founded, with Ricardo Zorraquín Becú, the Instituto de Investigaciones de Historia del Derecho in 1973 and served as its third director. This independent scholarly institute continues as a world center for the study of legal history. Tau was the ideal director of the Instituto, as I experienced the first time I visited in 2009. I had known Tau’s works for over a decade but had not met him. He seemed genuinely happy that I dropped in unannounced and gave me a tour of the facilities with special attention to its library’s holdings and history. I felt welcomed by the time he spent with me, his detailed discussion of the Instituto, and the armful of books he gave me. From the start, Tau made it clear that the field was open, open to anyone from anywhere who wanted to grapple with its substance.
In 1966, he was a founding member and first secretary of the Instituto Internacional de Historia del Derecho Indiano, an organization dedicated to the study of and publications of works on Spanish colonial law. He was an active and welcoming presence at the meetings of this Instituto.
For many, knowing Tau brought the honor and pleasure of knowing his wife, Estela. She is kind, intelligent, and impressive in her own right; Estela and Tau were a team. She too made all around her – students, close friends, foreign academics and their partners, and everyone who assisted in the many conferences and congresses she attended with Tau – welcomed, appreciated, and at ease.
Colleagues, students, readers, and friends mourn the loss of a scholar who welcomed all who joined in the common endeavor of legal history. Tau was genuinely friendly, warm, and sympathetic. He was open to and at times defended approaches and perspectives that were vastly different from his own. For Tau, a shared love of the field bridged countries, continents, generations, and languages.
Matthew C. Mirow