Modern historical consciousness is ambivalent towards Medieval and Early Modern conflict of laws. The key to these attitudes is found in classical conflict of laws, and our relationship with it. We – modern private international lawyers – identify as the descendants of the private international lawyers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While remaining mindful of our own differences from these immediate ancestors, we also perceive them as having made a decisive break with their own Medieval and Early Modern ancestors. Which raises the question of how distant modern doctrine is from its preclassical counterpart: are we twice removed from our ancestors’ ancestors, or has modern doctrine been moving in a circular pattern?