His academic work was an inspiration to many. His best-known book is Judges, legislators and professors in which he sought to explain the different impact on law of each of these different actors throughout European legal history.

In the late 1990’s Prof. Van Caenegem was visiting professor at our Faculty at the invitation of Prof. Nico Roos. He taught the course on European legal history in the Magister Iuris Communis programme. His Maastricht classes inspired him to write the book European Law in the Past and the Future: Unity and Diversity over Two Millennia (2002). In the preface to this book, he recalls how much he liked our teaching system, the lively debates it incited and the international classroom: ‘The classes were small and consisted of students who had already obtained degrees in Law at home. They came from various countries and continents, from Sweden to Brazil and from Ireland to Iran.’ The Faculty remembers Prof. Van Caenegem with great respect.