Full Description
This is an examination of how medieval people at all social levels thought about law, justice and politics, as well as their role in society. The author provides both a history of judicial developments in the 13th and 14th centuries and contributes to the understanding of intellectual history in the period. Each chapter focuses on a different facet of legal culture and experiences, and enables the reader to enter the realms of both perception and reality. Taken cumulatively, they combine to offer a picture of the state of legal consciousness: an ideological context in which to set the political and judicial developments that were occurring during the two centuries of tremendous social change.
Contents
Preface; List of abbreviations; Part Onepsychology of law; 1. The role of ideology; 2. The contexts of law; 3. Law in the mind; Part Two: The professionalism of law; 4. The intellectualising of the law; 5. Towards an identity as a profession; 6. Practitoners and ethical considerations; 7. Judges and lawyers in society; 8. Centre and periphery; 9. Perceptions of the legal profession; Part Three: Pragmatic legal knowledge; 10. Family and household; 11. Communal obligations; 12. Court attendance; 13. Church attendance; 14. Experience of office-holding; 15. Book learning and literacy; Part Four: Participation in the royal courts 16. Availability; 17. Actionability; 18. Accountability; 19. Accessibility; Part five: The role of Parliament; 20. The high court of Parliament; 21. The legal personnel of Parliament; 22. The regulation of everyday life; Part Six: Conclusion: the politicisation of law; 23. Seeing and hearing the law: the king's role in justice; 24. Seeing and hearing the law: royal propaganda; 25. Legitimacy through the law; 26. The world turned upside down; Select bibliography; Index
