The Oxford Handbook of English Law and Literature, 1500-1700

Cambridge Law Journal, 2021

Cambridge Law Journal. In many ways it was a response to, and development from, F. W. Maitland's Rede Lecture with the same title, published some 80 years previously. Baker's paper marks a punctuation in his study of English law under the early Tudors, a subject which he has made his own, culminating in his magisterial sixth volume of The Oxford History of the Laws of England. In addition, it marked a major break with the earlier orthodoxy that English law in this period was fundamentally distinct from the law which was developing on the European continent. The present paper explores both of these themes.

History Workshop Journal, 2008

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019

The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Law and Literature addresses the need for an authoritative guide through the bewildering maze of medieval law as well as the need for concise examples of how the law infiltrated literary texts. The Companion combines accessible essays written by leading specialists in legal history with essays exploring literary conversations with the law in the works of later medieval authors from Chaucer to Malory. The first half of this book contains detailed introductions to legal concepts, practices, and institutions in medieval England. In the second half, experts cover a number of texts and authors from across the later medieval period whose verse and prose can be understood as engaging with the law. In this way, the Cambridge Companion to Medieval Law and Literature forms the basis for students wishing to explore this rich area or for scholars to familiarise themselves with literary uses of the law. ISBN: 9781316632345

In his provocative 1975 essay ‘Property, Authority and the Criminal Law’ Douglas Hay declared: ‘The private manipulation of the law by the wealthy and the powerful was in truth a ruling-class conspiracy, in the most exact meaning of the word. The king, judges, magistrates and gentry used private, extra-legal dealings among themselves to bend the statute and common law to their purposes.’ A doctoral candidate who studied under the direction of E.P. Thompson, architect of the Marxist-oriented ‘Warwick School’ of English social history, Hay’s inflammatory rhetoric narrowed the perspective of the English legal system down to a sweeping generalisation. He echoed his adviser’s belief that eighteenth-century English law ‘favoured those with power and disadvantaged those without.’ This essay presents the work of subsequent historians who disproved his assumption—most notably John Langbein—and which culminated in Peter King’s assessment that during this transitional period ‘the law held different meanings for different people and its pluralistic nature meant that each individual or social group might have a range of often contradictory experiences of legal institutions’.

On 20 June 1530, John Laurence, former servant to a London widow named Lucy Lacey, and Robert Turner, a Lancashire man, made a confession regarding their parts in a heinous crime committed about two months before. In late April of the same year, the two men and two other confederates had conspired to rob Mistress Lacey's house and had callously killed her maidservant in the process. The two men admitted their roles in the felony under examination at Cardinal Wolsey's residence at the manor of Southwell, Nottinghamshire. As those who examined Laurence and Turner no doubt knew, Mistress Lacey was a widow of advanced years-perhaps as old as eighty-and the attack upon her, not to mention the cruel slaying of her maidservant, was an especially heinous crime.

The Sixteenth Century Journal, 2003

Journal of Law and Society , 2017

Although history, legal history, and socio-legal studies significantly overlap in concerns, methods, values and history, and a common tradition, these commonalities are frequently overlooked. In seeking to promote greater dialogue between these disciplines, this article examines their complex interaction, arguing that the work of socio-legal scholars, historians, and legal historians would benefit from greater cross-fertilization. It focuses on the 'legal turn' in recent history writing on early modern England, particularly Christopher W. Brooks's groundbreaking analysis of the nature and extent of legal consciousness throughout society, and the central role of law and legal institutions in the constitution of society. It then outlines some areas of common interest and, having highlighted the increasing convergence between history, legal history, and socio-legal studies, concludes that greater dialogue would enhance our understanding of the role of law in society, and of society, and would be of more than mere historical interest. This essay is dedicated to the memory of John Beattie (1932-2017), doyen of the history of crime, criminal justice, and policing, and a much-loved friend and colleague. Source: (2017) 44 Journal of Law and Society issue S1, pp. S37- S60.

Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015

This book argues that medieval ideas of translation, a Lancastrian legacy of conciliar government, and an adherence to unwritten tradition created a vernacular legal culture that challenged the textual practices of Erasmian Humanism and the early Reformation. The proliferation of vernacular law books, I maintain, contributed to the popular rebellions of 1549, at the helm of which often stood petitioners trained in paralegal writing. Details: http://undpress.nd.edu/books/P03163#description

2000

Law and Human Behavior, 1982

This paper surveys the criminal justice system in i6th and 17th century England, for the purpose of pointing out important similarities between its workings and the operation of the criminal justice system in the modem United States. Topics covered include (1) the nature and incidence of crime; (2) citizen participation in and cooperation with the criminal justice system; and (3) the disposition of persons and cases. The authors conclude that, contrary to popular opinion, early modem England was not a halcyon period of law and order. That the English criminal justice system was beset by problems similar to those faced today seems to indicate that the interaction between law and society is inherently problematic.