Law, Lawyers and Litigants in Early Modern England
Essays in Memory of Christopher W. Brooks

Explores the impact of legal ideas and legal consciousness on early modern English society and culture.

Michael Lobban (Edited by), Joanne Begiato (Edited by), Adrian Green (Edited by)

9781108740647, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 January 2021

383 pages, 9 b/w illus. 2 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.56 kg

'The essays collected in Law, Lawyers, and Litigants in Early Modern England form a fitting tribute to legal historian Christopher W. Brooks and the tremendous impact his work has had on our understanding of law and society in early modern England.' Alison A. Chapman, The Journal of British Studies

Written in memory of Christopher W. Brooks, this collection of essays by prominent historians examines and builds on the scholarly legacy of the leading historian of early modern English law, society and politics. Brooks's work put legal culture and legal consciousness at the centre of our understanding of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English society, and the English common law tradition. The essays presented here develop a number of strands found in his work, and take them in new directions. They shed new light on central debates in the history of the common law, exploring how law was understood and used by different communities in early modern England, and examining how and why people engaged (or did not engage) in litigation. The volume also contains two hitherto unpublished essays by Christopher Brooks, which consider the relationship between law and religion and between law and political revolution in seventeenth-century England.

1. Introduction Michael Lobban, Joanne Begiato and Adrian Green
2. Christopher Brooks's contribution to early modern history Michael J. Braddick
3. Law, law-consciousness and lawyers as constitutive of early modern England: Christopher W. Brooks's singular journey David Sugarman
4. 'The hard rind of legal history': F. W. Maitland and the writing of late medieval and early modern British social history R. A. Houston
5. Fountains of justice: James I, Charles I and equity R. W. Hoyle
6. The Inns of Court, Renaissance, and the language of modernity Phil Withington
7. The micro-spatial dynamics of litigation: the Chilvers Coton tithe dispute, Barrows vs. Archer (1657) Steve Hindle
8. 'Law-mindedness': crowds, courts and popular knowledge of the law in early modern England John Walter
9. Local laws, local principles: the paradoxes of local legal processes in early modern England Peter Rushton
10. 'So now you are wed enough': clandestine unions in the north-west of England in the first half of the eighteenth century Joanne Begiato
11. 'Blunderers and Blotters of the Law? The rise of conveyancing in the eighteenth century and long term socio-legal change' Craig Muldrew
12. England and America: the role of the Justice of the Peace in County Durham, England and Richmond County, Virginia, in the eighteenth century Gwenda Morgan
13. Law and architecture in early modern Durham Adrian Green
14. Law and revolution: the seventeenth century English example C. W. Brooks
15. Religion and law in early modern England C. W. Brooks.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], Law [L]