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Full Description
This microhistory reconstructs and analyses a protracted legal dispute over a small parcel of land called Warrens Court in Nibley, Gloucestershire, which was contested between successive generations of two families from the mid-sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century. Employing a rich cache of archival material, Jason Peacey traces legal contestation over time and through a range of different courts, as well as in Parliament and the public domain, and contends that a microhistorical approach makes it possible to shed valuable light upon the legal and political culture of early modern England, not least by comprehending how certain disputes became protracted and increasingly bitter, and why they fascinated contemporaries. This involves recognising the dynamic of litigation, in terms of how disputes changed over time, and how those involved in myriad lawsuits found legal reasons for prolonging contestation. It also involves exploring litigants' strategies and practices, as well as competing claims about the way in which adversaries behaved, and incompatible expectations of the legal system. Finally, it involves teasing out the structural issues in play, in terms of the social, cultural, and ideological identities of successive generations. Ultimately, this dispute is employed to address important historiographical debates surrounding the nature of civil litigation in early modern England, and to provide new ways of appreciating the nature, severity, and visibility of political and religious conflict in the decades before and after the English Revolution.
Contents
Introduction
Part One: Suits
Introduction to Part One
1: 'Strange passages in divers suits': waging law over Warrens Court, 1560-1615
2: 'Given to superstitious uses': contesting Lady Katherine Berkeley's Grammar School, 1615-1662
Part Two: Strategies
Introduction to Part Two
3: 'A lawyer by practice': John Smyth of Nibley as litigant
4: 'Power and wicked practices': John Smyth, influence, and intimidation
5: 'A huntsman after broken titles': Benjamin Crokey as litigant
6: 'For your sake I sent this down': the battle over Crokey's pamphlet, 1625-1631
Part Three: Structures
Introduction to Part Three
7: 'Country malice', the 'inferior sort', and the Church of England: the mental world of John Smyth
8: 'The many-headed multitude': the royalism of John Smyth junior
9: 'For God's cause and the public good': the mental world of Benjamin Crokey
Conclusion
