Imprisoning the Mentally Ill in Medieval England
What to do with mentally ill individuals who are violent? This is a question that modern and medieval societies had to deal with.
The Laws about Weddings in Viking-Age Gotland
An important source about daily-life in Viking-Age Scandinavia is Guta Lag, a set of laws from the Swedish island of Gotland. This includes details on how weddings were to be conducted.
Medieval Emergencies and the Contemporary Debate
This article shows that medieval France formulated its own state of exception, meant to deal with emergencies, based on the legal principle of necessity.
Magna Carta Conference Offers New Insights Into The 800-year-old Document
Magna Carta just celebrated its 800th birthday this past Monday. In honour of this incredible milestone, King’s College London, and the Magna Carta Project, hosted a 3 day conference dedicated to this historic document.
Bishops and Their Towns
Another #KZOO2015 post – this one examines Bishops and Their Towns.
Shadow of the Sword (The Headsman)
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau gives us a sympathetic Headsman in Reformation Austria, in the ‘Shadow of the Sword (The Headsman)’.
KZOO 2015: Session #42 – Magna Carta in Context
This coming week I’ll be featuring summaries on some of my favourites sessions and papers from #KZOO2015. I kicked off my first session on Thursday with the Magna Carta.
Incest in Early Medieval Society
The question of what persons and why can have sexual relations with each other and consequently, can contract marriage, is of basic importance for the functioning of every society, irrespective of time, place and the degree of the society’s development.
Magna Carta: The Road to Runnymede
A look at the creation of the British Library’s Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy exhibition.
Trial by Battle in France and England
This dissertation surveys the history of trial by battle in the French-speaking regions of the European continent and England, concentrating on the period between roughly 1050 and 1350 when it was most practiced.
Law in the Lives of Medieval Women: Beyond the Magna Carta
Ruth Mazo Karras discussed, through an analysis of the lives of three women, the way law affected (or not) women at different levels of society in medieval England.
Ostsiedlung or Transition of German Law? Legal Perspective on Settlement According to German Law in Medieval Poland
Paper given at Twenty-First Annual Forum of Young Legal Historians – 6th Berg Institute International Conference
Capital and Corporal Punishment may have been rare in Anglo-Saxon England, researcher suggests
A long standing belief about early medieval justice was that many offenders would be executed for serious crimes, or face punishments such as amputations for lesser offences. However, an examination of archaeological data suggests that these kinds of punishments were rare in Anglo-Saxon England.
A peasant is a peasant, is a peasant? : Medieval Maritime Peasant Lives
A peasant is a peasant, is a peasant…or is s/he? Was the life of a peasant who lived in the coastal regions of England the same as that of the peasant who made his livelihood toiling on the land for his local lord?
Intersex in the Middle Ages
A brief look at how the medieval world viewed the Intersex individual.
Aquinas on Torture
Here we are faced with something that, for this writer at least, is something of an enigma. It does not appear that Aquinas approved of this practice. Nowhere does he defend it, although he explicitly defends putting heretics to death.
The King’s Courts and the King’s Soul: Pardoning as Almsgiving in Medieval England
This paper examines the workings of the English royal courts in the thirteenth century through one of their practices—pardoning—and argues that the king and his officials could see courts not just as venues for justice, but also as institutions through which the king could see to the health of his own soul.
Medieval Books for Christmas
It’s that time of year again – the mad scramble for the perfect Christmas gift for the historian, nerd, avid reader on your list. Here are a few suggestions for you – new releases for December and January!
CONFERENCES: The Stellinga, the Saxon Elite, and Carolingian Politics
This is my summary of a paper presented at the Institute of Historical Research on the causes of the Stellinga uprising in the Carolingian period.
Besteiros Do Conto (Crossbowmen): Organization, abuses of power and irregularities during the reign of Dom João I (1385-1433)
The aim of this paper is to examine an aspect of social life linked to one of the most important and original forms of military organization in the whole of Portuguese history—the besteiros do conto (crossbowmen).
Women do not sit as Judges, or do they? The office of Judge in Vincentius Bellovacensis’ Speculum
It was Charles Homer Haskins (1870-1936) who coined the expression “Renaissance of the twelfth century”. Before him this expression referred more specifically to the Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth century as nineteenth century Swiss historian Jakob Burckhardt put it.
The Patriarch Alexios Stoudites and the Reinterpretation of Justinianic Legislation against Heretics
Using normative legal sources such as law codes and imperial novels to illuminate Byzantine heresy is a very difficult proposition. One of the great problems in the analysis of Byzantine law in general is that the normative legal sources rarely were adapted to subsequent economic, political, or social conditions.
The Prologue to Alfred’s Law Code: Instruction in the Spirit of Mercy
The Prologue to Alfred’s Law Code: Instruction in the Spirit of Mercy Michael Treschow Florilegium: Volume 13 (1994) Abstract Alfred’s law code tends…
Medieval English Law manuscript digitised
The Textus Roffensis, a 12th century legal encyclopaedia, is now available online.
Crafting the witch: Gendering magic in medieval and early modern England
This project documents and analyzes the gendered transformation of magical figures occurring in Arthurian romance in England from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.