Non-ProZ.com Jun 4, 2006:

Thanks again. Barring horrified responses from you, Ingeborg, Erik, R.R. (since even my reading of your suggestions must be legally 'uninformed'), I'll probably go for '... were subject to a domain of their own in law'. I'm drawn to 'domain' because of the 'territory'/'land' echoes even though it refers to the law as a domain. 'Law' to close the sentence, from a stylistic angle.

Non-ProZ.com Jun 3, 2006:

legal domains... Thank you very much for the useful fuel, everyone. While I'm awaiting the recommended 24 hrs, the matter will brew! The overall context is a book on the development of the European (designed) garden as an art form, Classical Antiquity to the present. "Gartenkunst", the pundits are saying, is The Up-and-Coming Thing (forgive pun). /S.

Erik Macki Jun 3, 2006:

My initial take was that Rechtsraum refers to the physical area in the yard/inside the hedge, a "legal space/area" or "space/area defined by law." Ingeborg is probably right, but I thought I'd throw this idea out there.