Images and Cultures of Law in Early Modern England - Justice and Political Power, 1558-1660

Informationen zum Autor Paul Raffield is Tutor in Constitutional Law and a guest lecturer in legal history, law and literature, Birkbeck College, University of London. Klappentext This book offers an interesting interpretation of the hidden culture of the early modern legal profession and its influence on the development of the English constitution. It locates an alternative site of political sovereignty in the legal communities at the Inns of Court in London, examining the signs of legitimacy by which they sought to validate the claim that common law represented sovereign constitutional authority. The role of symbols in the culture of English law is central to the book's analysis. Within the framework of a cultural history of the legal profession from 1558 to 1660, the book considers the social presence of the law, revealed in its various signs. It analyses how institutional existence at the Inns of Court presented the legal community as an emblematic template for the English nation-state, defending the sovereignty of the Ancient Constitution by reference to the immemorial provenance of common law. Zusammenfassung Examining aspects of law! history! art! drama and literature! this is an interesting interpretation of a hidden culture: the arcane world of the early modern legal community! its attempts to restrict governmental power during the period 1558 to 1660! and its aim to represent the order of an ideal commonwealth. Inhaltsverzeichnis List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Eating, learning and revering the law: oral traditions and the religious inheritance; 2. Architecture and heraldry: bodies of law, myth and honour; 3. Revels, feasting and role-playing: dreamland, drunkenness and the Utopian state; 4. The theatre of law: dramatic symbols of crown, common law and the Ancient Constitution; 5. Reformation, regulation and the image: the English state and the subject of law; 6. Common lawyers, fundamental law and the idolatrous mask of Charles I; 7. Interregnum: lex, ius and de facto government; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index....

Product details

• Authors: Raffield Paul, Paul Raffield, Paul (Birkbeck College Raffield, Raffield Paul
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 29.11.2007
• EAN: 9780521044530
• ISBN: 978-0-521-04453-0
• No. of pages: 304
• Series: Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History; Cambridge Studies in Early Mod; Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Social sciences, law, business > Law > International law, foreign law; England, Wales, European History, LAW / Legal History, LAW / Constitutional, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / Stuart Era (1603-1714), HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / Wales, British & Irish history, Legal History, 17th century, c 1600 to c 1699, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, 16th century, c 1500 to c 1599, c 1500 to c 1600, Constitutional & administrative law, Constitutional and administrative law: general, Wales / Cymru