Description
Book SynopsisLate medieval societies witnessed the emergence of a particular form of socio-legal practice and logic, focused on the law court and its legal process. In a context of legal pluralism, courts tried to carve out their own position by influencing people’s conception of what justice was and how one was supposed to achieve it. These “scripts of justice” took shape through a range of media, including texts, speech, embodied activities and the spaces used to perform all these. Looking beyond traditional historiographical narratives of state building or the professionalization of law, this book argues that the development of law courts was grounded in changing forms of multimedial interaction between those who sought justice and those who claimed to provide it. Through a comparative study of three markedly different types of courts, it involves both local contexts and broader developments in tracing the communication strategies of these late medieval claimants to socio-legal authority.
Trade Review"Met Scripting justice levert Camphuijsen ontegensprekelijk een waardevolle bijdrage aan de bestaande historiografie rond de institutionalisering van rechtbanken in het laatmiddeleeuwse Europa."
-- Falco Van der Schueren,
Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, Vol.135, Issue 2/3
Table of ContentsList of figures, maps, plans and timelines
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Profiles: Three late medieval law courts
2. Legal space
3. The rituality of court practice
4. Legal text and social context
5. Court and society: the production and consumption of justice
General conclusion
Appendix 1: Utrecht
Appendix 2: York
Appendix 3: Paris
Bibliography
Index
