• Preface
• Glossary of Non-English Terms
• Introduction: Mediterranean Admiralty and Maritime Laws in Historical Perspective ; Legislative Sources of Byzantine Sea-Laws ; The Mediterranean between the Domination of Byzantium and of Islam ; Islamic Admiralty and Maritime Laws and Practices ; Purposes and Methodology of the Study
• Chapter One, Physical and Legal Significance of Vessel: Definition of a "Ship" ; Capacity and Overloading Regulations ; Names ; Summary
• Chapter Two, The Vessel's Human Complement: Ownership ; Joint Ownership ; Seamen, Their Employment, Welfare, and Status.
• 1. Definition of a "seaman" ;
• 2. Service Contract ;
• 3. Forms of Employment ;
• 4. Wages ;
• 5. Accommodation and Welfare ;
• 6. Misbehavior ;
• 7. Duty in Times of Peril ;
• 8. Termination of Service
• Passengers: Entitlements and Obligations.
• 1. Definition of a "Passenger" ;
• 2. Diet and Accommodation ;
• 3. Boarding ;
• 4. The Carrier's Liability for Passengers' Belongings ;
• 5. Discipline ;
• 6. Religious Rituals ;
• 7. Funeral Practices at Sea ;
• 8. Contribution to Salvage ; Summary
• Chapter Three: Carriage of Goods : General ; The Contract, Written or Oral? ; Types and Formation of Contracts of Affreightment (1. Contract of Carriage in a Particular Ship ;
• 2. Contract of Carriage with a Common Carrier) ; Bills of Lading ; Carrier's Liability for Partial Damage and Total Loss ; Payment of Freight Charges ; Factors Affecting Freightage (I. Loading Berth ; II. En Route ; III. Destination) ; Cancellation of Contract ; Summary
• Chapter Four: Jettison, General Average, and Contribution : General ; Rules of Jettison ; Commercial Commodities and Personal Effects ; Assessment of General Average ; Freight Charges ; Valuation of the Ship for Contribution ; Human Jettison and Contribution for Lives ; Choice of Forum and Evidentiary Issues (1. Oral Deposition ;
• 2. Written Evidence ;
• 3. Physical Examination of the Ship) ; Summary
• Chapter Five: Collision : General ; Navigational Misconduct ; Inevitable Collision ; Intentional Collision ; Summary
• Chapter Six: Salvage, Salvors and Shippers : General ; Life Salvage ; Property Subject to Salvage ; Salvors and the Salvage Awards ; Formalities and Legal Procedures ; International Treaties ; Salvaged Property and Freight Charges ; Summary
• Chapter Seven: Commercial Law : General : The Sea Loan : Byzantine Chreokoinonia and Islamic Qirad/Mudaraba (Commenda) ; Summary
• Conclusions
• Appendices. Appendix One: Nomos Rhodion Nautikos, Part II, Part III
• Appendix Two: [41 v. ] Kitab Akriyat al-Sufun wal-Niza' bayna Ahliha (Treatise Concerning the Leasing of Ships and the Claims between (Contracting) Parties) : Hiring Seamen for Ships ; Hire of Ships ; Obstacles to Execution of the Concluded Contract of Affreightment ; Destruction of the Ship and/or Cargo ; Goods Jettisoned Overboard into the Sea ; Liability or otherwise of Ship Owners for what They Carry ; Loading the Ship with Foodstuffs and/or other Goods ; A Ship Owned by Two Partners ; Profit-Sharing between a Ship Owner and a Person who Operates his Ship ; [Attachment: Six Jurisprudential Questions (Masa'il)]
• A Short Biography of Early Muslim jurists cited in the Kitab Akriyat al-Sufun
• Index of Cited Statutes from Roman and Byzantine Legal Codices
• General index.

This is a comparative study dealing with the maritime practices which prevailed in the Byzantine and Islamic worlds around the Mediterranean from 7-10 centuries C.E. and consists of seven chapters. The first chapter describes the physical and legal significance of the ship, computation of capacity, and the importance of naming commercial vessels. Chapter Two examines issues of ownership and possession of a vessel, the employment conditions of the crew, and the passengers' status on board ship. Carriage of cargo by sea and forms of contracts, liability of the lessor, shipping fees, and breach of contract are covered in Chapter Three. Jettison, average, and contribution are treated in Chapter Four. Chapter Five treats the laws of collision and the rules governing the salvage of jetsam, are surveyed in Chapter Six. The final chapter explains the legal differences between Byzantine and Islamic mercantile law and outlines the principles of the sea loan, chreokoinonia, and qirad.

• El rey sabio
• The lawgiver and the law
• Creating a dynasty
• The king and his people
• Defender of the faith
• The defense of the realm
• Litigants, judges, and lawyers
• The judicial process
• Marriage, family, and inheritance
• The law of persons
• The law of property
• Trade and commerce
• Crime and punishment
• The law of the non-Christian peoples
• The juridical achievement of Alfonso X.

In this magisterial work, Joseph O'Callaghan offers a detailed account of the establishment of Alfonso X's legal code, the Libro de las leyes or Siete Partidas, and its applications in the daily life of thirteenth-century Iberia, both within and far beyond the royal courts. O'Callaghan argues that Alfonso X, el Sabio (the Wise), was the Justinian of his age, one of the truly great legal minds of human history. Alfonso X, the Justinian of His Age highlights the struggles the king faced in creating a new, coherent, inclusive, and all-embracing body of law during his reign, O'Callaghan also considers Alfonso X's own understanding of his role as king, lawgiver, and defender of the faith in order to evaluate the impact of his achievement on the administration of justice. Indeed, such was the power and authority of the Alfonsine code that it proved the king's downfall when his son invoked it to challenge his rule. Throughout this soaring legal and historical biography, O'Callaghan reminds us of the long-term impacts of Alfonso X's legal works, not just on Castilian (and later, Iberian) life, but on the administration of justice across the world.
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• List of Tables-- Abbreviations-- Introduction: The Egyptological Approach to the Study of Aramaic Legal Formulae-- The Elephantine Community and Aramaic Law-- The Egyptian Fomularly Tradition-- Challenging the Consensus: The ???? Clause-- The 'Withdrawal' and Related Formulae in the Aramaic Legal Tradition-- The Use of ____ in the Egyptian Legal Tradition-- A Comparison of the Aramaic and Egyptian Uses of Withdrawal Clauses-- Reconsidering the origins of Aramaic and Demotic Legal Formulae-- Works Cited.
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This is a study of the interrelationships between the formulary traditions of the legal documents of the Jewish colony of Elephantine and the legal formulary traditions of their Egyptian counterparts. The legal documents of Elephantine have been approached in three different ways thus far: first, comparing them to the later Aramaic legal tradition; second, as part of a self-contained system, and more recently from the point of view of the Assyriological legal tradition. However, there is still a fourth possible approach, which has long been neglected by scholars in this field, and that is to study the Elephantine legal documents from an Egyptological perspective. In seeking the Egyptian parallels and antecedents to the Aramaic formulary, Botta hopes to balance the current scholarly perspective, based mostly upon Aramaic and Assyriological comparative studies.
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• Introduction
• Western Europe before 1100
• Western Europe and British North America, 1100-1800
• Justifications and discussions
• Communities, individuals, and property.

This title dates the practice as far back as the Middle Ages in Europe. In this concise history of expropriation of land for the common good in Europe and North America from medieval times to 1800, Susan Reynolds contextualizes the history of an important legal doctrine regarding the relationship between government and the institution of private property. ""Before Eminent Domain"" concentrates on western Europe and the English colonies in America. As Reynolds argues, expropriation was a common legal practice in many societies in which individuals had rights to land. It was generally accepted that land could be taken from them, with compensation, when the community, however defined, needed it. She cites examples of the practice since the early Middle Ages in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, and from the seventeenth century in America. Reynolds concludes with a discussion of past and present ideas and assumptions about community, individual rights, and individual property that underlie the practice of expropriation but have been largely ignored by historians of both political and legal thought.
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• Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Introduction
• 1. The Process: Traditional Marriage
• 2. The Act: The Making of Marriage in MEdieval Canon Law
• 3. The Challenge: Controlling Marriage Formation in Medieval Sweden
• 4. Ecclesiastical Control vs. Traditional MArriage Formation in Reformation Sweden 5.Conclusion Abbreviations Sources and Bibliography Index.
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Swedish medieval marriage formation was a process, written down in the secular laws. However, it started to evolve because of the interaction with the medieval Catholic marriage doctrine, which focused on mutual words of consent. Although first the canon law of marriage, and then Lutheran marriage dogma influenced the Swedish development, the perception of marriage as a process, consisting of several legal acts and accompanied by property transfers, proved remarkably resilient. The pragmatic and rural character of Sweden contributed to this, despite pressure from canon and Roman law and attempts at bringing marriage formation under ecclesiastical control. Marrying by stages was in itself unremarkable in Europe, but the legal foundation and formality make medieval and sixteenth-century Sweden a unique case study.
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• List of Diagrams; Abbreviations; Introduction; Chapter One: The Biographies of Hilal al-Ra'y and al-Khassaf; Chapter Two: The Waqf Treatises and Third-Century A.H. Hanafi discourse; Chapter Three: Giving Legal Definition to the Waqf; Chapter Four: Hermeneutical Legitimation; Conclusion; Appendix A: Table of Contents to the Ahkam al-Waqf of Hilal al-Ra'y; Appendix B: Table of Contents to the Ahkam al-Awqaf of al-Khassaf; Appendix C: Translation of an Early Sadaqa/Hubs Deed; Appendix D: Additional Terminological Clarifications in the Waqf Treatises; Bibliography; Index.

This book present the first sustained analysis of the earliest legal treatises on the Islamic trust, or waqf -- the Ahkam al-Waqf of Hilal al-Ra y and the Ahkam al-Awqaf of al-Khassaf. The book situates the treastise and their authors within third/ninth century legal culture, and then undertakes a systematic textual analysis of the treatises, examining both the attributes of Hanafi legal discourse and how the waqf came to be defined and situated within existing categories of charitable giving, inheritance, bequest and death-sickness. The final chapter focuses on how the waqf was legitimated hermeneutically through traditions of the Prophet and his Companions. The close textual analysis of these treatises is especially important for historians of early Islamic law.
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• Image List Introduction
• * Barbarian Laws in Context * Process and Procedure * The Head * Torso, Arms and Legs * Hands and Feet * Insult and Injury * Gender Differentiation * Assault by Rant * Summary Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography.
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The sixth to ninth centuries saw a flowering of written laws among the early Germanic tribes. These laws include tables of fines for personal injury, designed to offer a legal, non-violent alternative to blood feud. Using these personal injury tariffs, The Body Legal in Barbarian Law examines a variety of issues, including the interrelationships between victims, perpetrators, and their families; the causes and results of wounds inflicted in daily life; the methods, successes, and failures of healing techniques; the processes of individual redress or public litigation; and the native and borrowed developments in the various 'barbarian' territories as they separated from the Roman Empire. By applying the techniques of linguistic anthropology to the pre-history of medicine, anatomical knowledge, and law, Lisi Oliver has produced a remarkable study that sheds new light on early Germanic conceptions of the body in terms of medical value, physiological function, psychological worth, and social significance.
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• List of Contributors .. vii Introduction .. ix Isabel Alfonso and Julio Escalona Part One: Legitimation in Context Conflict, Power and Legitimation in Francia in the Late Seventh and Eighth Centuries .. 3 Paul Fouracre A Crisis of Fidelity in c. 1000? .. 27 Stephen White Judicial Rhetoric and Political Legitimation in Medieval Leon-Castile .. 51 Isabel Alfonso Legitimation, Designation and Succession to the Throne in Fourteenth-Century England .. 89 Chris Given-Wilson The King's Face on the Territory: Royal Officers, Discourse and Legitimating Practices in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Castile .. 107 Cristina Jular Perez-Alfaro The Importance of Being Earnest: Urban Elites and the Distribution of Power in Castilian Towns in the Late Middle Ages .. 139 Jose Antonio Jara Fuente Part Two: Discourses of Political Legitimation The Strengthening of Royal Power in Castile under Alfonso XI .. 179 Carlos Estepa Family Memories: Inventing Alfonso I of Asturias .. 223 Julio Escalona An Interpreter of Law and Power in a Region of Medieval Poland: Abbot Peter of Henrykow and is Book .. 263 Piotr Gorecki Political Struggle and the Legitimation of the Toledan Primacy: The Pars Lateranii Concilii .. 291 Patrick Henriet Albertano of Brescia, Rolandino of Padua and the Rhetoric of Legitimation .. 319 Frances Andrews Index .. 341.
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This volume presents a selection of papers exploring the ways by which medieval powers sought to legitimize themselves, the political discourses through which this was effected, and a wide range of related problems. The six chapters in Part I analyse particular cases in which processes of legitimation can be seen at work, in order to disentangle the wide range of strategies and resources deployed by competing actors in a given context. Part II gathers five articles discussing the specific discourses of legitimation contained in a text or group of related texts, in order to expose their intricacies and their bearing on the way historians look at their sources. The book is of relevance for readers interested in new ways of approaching the History of Power. With contributions by Frances Andrews, Carlos Estepa, Paul Fouracre, Chris Given-Wilson, Piotr Gorecki, Patrick Henriet, Jose Antonio Jara Fuente, Cristina Jular Perez-Alfaro and Stephen D. White. Contributors include: Paul Fouracre, Stephen White, Isabel Alfonso, Chris Given-Wilson, Cristina Jular Perez-Alfaro, Jose Antonio Jara Fuente, Carlos Estepa, Julio Escalona, Piotr Gorecki, Patrick Henriet, Frances Andrews.
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• Preface Abbreviations Introduction
• 1. The Medieval Scottish Parliament as a Central Court
• 2. The Evolution of the Session 1426-1532
• 3. The Foundation of the College of Justice
• 4. The Procedure of the Session
• 5. The Jurisdiction of the Session
• 6. Jurisdiction over Fee and Heritage
• 7. The Jurisdiction of the Session of Fee and Heritage
• 8. Litigation, Arbitration and Dispute resolution before the Session
• 9. The Role of the Session in Dispute Resolution Conclusion Appendices Bibliography Index.
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This book offers a fundamental reassessment of the origins of a central court in Scotland. It examines the early judicial role of Parliament, the development of "the Session" in the fifteenth century as a judicial sitting of the King's Council, and its reconstitution as the College of Justice in 1532. Drawing on new archival research into jurisdictional change, litigation and dispute settlement, the book breaks with established interpretations and argues for the overriding significance of the foundation of the College of Justice as a supreme central court administering civil justice. This signalled a fundamental transformation in the medieval legal order of Scotland, reflecting a European pattern in which new courts of justice developed out of the jurisdiction of royal councils.
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In A Commentary on Selected Speeches of Isaios, Brenda Griffith-Williams offers a fresh insight, accessible to non-Greek readers, into four disputed inheritance cases from the Athenian courts in the 4th century B.C. The only comprehensive English language commentary on Isaios (Wyse, 1904) reflects a negative view of the Athenian legal system as one in which the judges, who had no legal training, could be easily outwitted by an unscrupulous speechwriter with no regard for the truth. By addressing the complex interplay of factual, legal, and rhetorical issues in the selected speeches, Brenda Griffith-Williams identifies the strengths and weaknesses of each speaker's case and presents a more balanced assessment of Isaios's work.
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• Acknowledgements Introduction
• 1 The Accused and the Court: Confrontations and Legal Spaces
• 2 De verbis ad verbera: Wounded Honor, Interpersonal Violence, and Exculpatory Narratives
• 3 Disciplining the Clergy: Personal Sins and Public Challenges
• 4 Civil Litigation: A Space of Registration and Mediation
• 5 The Court as a Judicial Space: Coercion and Compliance-- Sanctioning and Sentencing Conclusion Appendix: Transcriptions of Select Cases Bibliography Subject Index Modern Author Index.
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Diocesan Justice in Late Fifteenth-Century Carpentras uses notarial records from the 1480s to reconstruct the procedures, caseload, and sanctions of the bishop's court of Carpentras and compare them to other secular and ecclesiastical courts. The court provided a robust forum for debt litigation utilized by a wide variety of people. Its criminal proceedings focused on recidivist clerics who engaged in fights, disobedience, anti-Jewish activities, and sexual transgressions. Its justice varied depending on whether cases involved violence, sex, or contracts. The judge applied sanctions gingerly and protected litigants' rights carefully, in ways we might not expect: his role was to intervene in, explore, and document conflicts, and to elicit confessions and mediate disputes. Participants exploited this narrative and archival space well.
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• The accused and the court : confrontations and legal spaces
• "De verbis ad verbera" : wounded honor, interpersonal violence, and exculpatory narratives
• Disciplining the clergy : personal sins and public challenges
• Civil litigation : a space of registration and mediation
• The court as a judicial space : coercion and compliance, sanctioning and sentencing.

Diocesan Justice in Late Fifteenth-Century Carpentras uses notarial records from the 1480s to reconstruct the procedures, caseload, and sanctions of the bishop's court of Carpentras and compare them to other secular and ecclesiastical courts. The court provided a robust forum for debt litigation utilized by a wide variety of people. Its criminal proceedings focused on recidivist clerics who engaged in fights, disobedience, anti-Jewish activities, and sexual transgressions. Its justice varied depending on whether cases involved violence, sex, or contracts. The judge applied sanctions gingerly and protected litigants' rights carefully, in ways we might not expect: his role was to intervene in, explore, and document conflicts, and to elicit confessions and mediate disputes. Participants exploited this narrative and archival space well.
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• Introduction
• Athens before the crisis
• Constitution and consensus
• Stability and innovation in Athenian policy
• The institutional foundations of prosperity
• The paths not taken
• Conclusion.

A comprehensive account of how the Athenian constitution was created-with lessons for contemporary constitution-building We live in an era of constitution-making. More than half of the world's constitutions have been drafted in the past half-century. Yet, one question still eludes theorists and practitioners alike: how do stable, growth-enhancing constitutional structures emerge and endure? In Creating a Constitution, Federica Carugati argues that ancient Athens offers a unique laboratory for exploring this question. Because the city-state was reasonably well-documented, smaller than most modern nations, and simpler in its institutional makeup, the case of Athens reveals key factors of successful constitution-making that are hard to flesh out in more complex settings. Carugati demonstrates that the institutional changes Athens undertook in the late fifth century BCE, after a period of war and internal strife, amounted to a de facto constitution. The constitution restored stability and allowed the democracy to flourish anew. The analysis of Athens's case reveals the importance of three factors for creating a successful constitution: first, a consensus on a set of shared values capable of commanding long-term support; second, a self-enforcing institutional structure that reflects those values; and, third, regulatory mechanisms for policymaking that enable tradeoffs of inclusion to foster growth without jeopardizing stability. Uniquely combining institutional analysis, political economy, and history, Creating a Constitution is a compelling account of how political and economic goals that we normally associate with Western developed countries were once achieved through different institutional arrangements.
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• Bereford takes charge
• The king, Parliament, and King's Bench
• Chancery
• Pleading
• Proof
• The thing's been decided
• Private courts
• The Church
• Women
• Serfs.

• Contents: Preface-- Introduction, Malcolm Barber-- Part I Before the Trial: Could alleged Templar malpractices have remained undetected for decades?, Alan Forey-- The election of the Templar Master Jacques de Molay, Anthony Luttrell-- Institutional dependency upon secular and ecclesiastical patrons and the foundations of the trial of the Templars, Nicholas Morton-- Fighting the King of France: Templars and Hospitallers in the Flemish rebellion of 1302, Bernard Schotte-- The monetary fluctuations in Philip IV's kingdom of France and their relevance to the arrest of the Templars, Ignacio de la Torre. Part II The Trial in France: Terror, torture and the truth: the testimonies of the Templars revisited, Thomas Kramer-- The Templars face the Inquisition: the papal commission and the diocesan tribunals in France, 1308-11, Dale R. Streeter-- Three 'traitors' of the Temple: was their truth the whole truth?, David Bryson-- The trial inventories of the Templars' houses in France: select aspects, Jochen Burgtorf-- On the margins of the Templars' trial: the case of Bishop Guichard of Troyes, Alain Provost-- The involvement of the University of Paris in the trials of Marguerite Porete and the Templars, 1308-10, Paul F. Crawford-- The trial depositions as evidence of kinship influences in the Order of the Temple, Jochen G. Schenk-- The social reception of the Templar trial in early 14th-Century France: the transmission of information, Magdalena Satora. Part III The Trial in the Iberian Peninsula: Reassessing the dissolution of the Templars: King Dinis and their suppression in Portugal, Clive Porro-- Icons, crosses and the liturgical objects of Templar chapels in the Crown of Aragon, Sebastian Salvado-- The extinction of the Order of the Temple in the kingdom of Valencia and early Montesa, 1307-30: a case of transition from universalist to territorialized military orders, Luis Garcia-Guijarro Ramos. Part IV The Trial in the British Isles: King Edward II of England and the Templars, Jeffrey S. Hamilton-- The trial of the Templars in Ireland, Helen J. Nicholson-- The Hospitallers' acquisition of the Templar lands in England, Simon Phillips. Part V The Trial in Other Countries: The arrest of the Templars in Cyprus, Peter W. Edbury-- Rinaldo da Concorezzo, Archbishop of Ravenna, and the trial of the Templars in Northern Italy, Elena Bellomo-- The Templars and their trial in Sicily, Kristjan Toomaspoeg-- The trial of the Templars in the County of Flanders, 1307-12, Filip Hooghe-- The commanderies of the Templars in the Polish lands and their history after the end of the Order, Maria Starnawska. Part VI General Aspects and the Aftermath: Templar runaways and renegades before, during and after the trial, Christian Vogel-- Priests of the Order of the Temple: what can they tell us?, Anne Gilmour-Bryson-- The assimilation of Templar properties by the Order of the Hospital, Theresa M. Vann-- 'The Templars are everywhere': an examination of the myths behind Templar survival after 1307, John Walker-- Conclusion, Jochen Burgtorf, Paul F. Crawford and Helen J. Nicholson-- Select bibliography-- Indexes.
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Seven hundred years after the dissolution of the order, the trial of the Templars still arouses enormous controversy and speculation. In October 1307, all the brothers of the military-religious order of the Temple in France were arrested on the instructions of King Philip IV and charged with heresy and other crimes. In 1312, Pope Clement V, at the Council of Vienne, dissolved the order. Since the 1970s, there has been increasing scholarly interest in the trial, and a series of books and articles have widened scholars' understanding of causes of this notorious affair, its course and its aftermath. However, many gaps in knowledge and understanding remain. What were the Templars doing in the months and years before the trial? Why did the king of France attack the Order? What evidence is there for the Templars' guilt? What became of the Templars and their property after the end of the Order? This book collects together the research of both junior and senior scholars from around the world in order to establish the current state of scholarship and identify areas for new research. Individual chapters examine various aspects of the background to the trial, the financial, political and religious context of the trial in France, the value of the Templars' testimonies, and consider the trial across the whole of Europe, from Poland and Cyprus to Ireland and Portugal. Rather than trying to close the discussion on the trial of the Templars, this book opens a new chapter in the ongoing scholarly debate.
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• Conflict and social (dis)order in Norway, c. 1030-1160 / Hans Jacob Orning
• Kingship, women and politics in Morkinskinna / Auður Magnúsdóttir
• How to legitimate rebellion and condemn usurpation of the crown : discourses of fidelity and treason in the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus / Lars Hermanson
• The power to judge : jurisdiction in property conflicts in thirteenth-century Denmark / Helle Vogt
• Disputing property in thirteenth- and fourteenth- century Zealand : the records of Soro donation book / Kim Esmark
• Gifts and society in fourteenth century Sweden / Catharina Andersson
• The field of property devolution in Norway during the late middle ages : inheritance settlements, marriage contracts and legal disputes / Lars Ivar Hansen
• The feelings in the feud : the emotional turn in the study of medieval vengeance / Stephen D. White
• The rules of conflict among the warrior aristocracy of the high middle ages / Gerd Althoff
• Legal history and the history of disputes / John Hudson.

In Scandinavia the study of disputes is still a relatively new topic: The papers offered here discuss how conflicts were handled in Scandinavian societies in the Middle Ages before the emergence of strong centralized states. What strategies did people use to contest power, property, rights, honour, and other kinds of material or symbolic assets? Seven essays by Scandinavian scholars are supplemented by contributions from Stephen White, John Hudson and Gerd Althoff, to provide a new baseline for discussing both the strategies pursued in the political game and those used to settle local disputes. Using practice and process as key analytical concepts, these authors explore formal law and litigation in conjunction with non-formal legal proceedings such as out-of-court mediation, rituals, emotional posturing, and feuding. Their insights place the Northern medieval world in a European context of dispute studies. With introductory sections on social structure, sources materials, and the historiography of Scandinavian dispute studies. Contributors are Gerd Althoff, Catharina Andersson, Kim Esmark, Lars Ivar Hansen, Lars Hermanson, John Hudson, Audur G. Magnusdottir, Hans Jacob Orning, Helle Vogt and Stephen D. White.
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• Introduction
• Ministers and officials
• Church and religion
• Liberties, franchises, and rights
• Crime, debt, and the law
• Merchants, trade, and finance
• War, resistance, and revolt
• Multiple petitions
• Appendix: Chronological lists of known common petitions, 1290-1340.

The fourteenth century witnessed the emergence of the parliamentary common petition, a statement of grievance and request for reform that provided the basis for much of the royal legislation of the period. In the process of compiling the common petitions, much proposed business was set aside and not committed to the permanent record of the parliament roll. A significant body of that 'lost' material has now been recovered and is published here for the first time, providing a fresh understanding of the full range of preoccupations of the medieval House of Commons as it emerged as the mouthpiece of the political community before the king. Alongside questions over the rights of the church, the corruption of officials and the processes of royal justice, the commons also expressed deep concerns over the many political, economic and social concerns of the period, including the consequences of war, plague and revolt.
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• PART 1: THE WOMEN
• PART 2: ENVY
• PART 3: POISON
• PART 4: DEATH.
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At the heart of this volume are three trials held in Athens in the fourth century BCE. The defendants were all women and in each case the charges involved a combination of ritual activities. Two were condemned to death. Because of the brevity of the ancient sources, and their lack of agreement, the precise charges are unclear, and the reasons for taking these women to court remain mysterious. Envy, Poison, and Death takes the complexity and confusion of the evidence not as a riddle to be solved, but as revealing multiple social dynamics. It explores the changing factors - material, ideological, and psychological - that may have provoked these events. It focuses in particular on the dual role of envy (phthonos) and gossip as processes by which communities identified people and activities that were dangerous, and examines how and why those local, even individual, dynamics may have come to shape official civic decisions during a time of perceived hardship. At first sight so puzzling, these trials reveal a vivid picture of the socio-political environment of Athens during the early-mid fourth century BCE, including responses to changes in women's status and behaviour, and attitudes to ritual activities within the city. The volume reveals some of the characters, events, and even emotions that would help to shape an emergent concept of magic: it suggests that the boundary of acceptable behaviour was shifting, not only within the legal arena but also through the active involvement of society beyond the courts.
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• Introduction
• The meaning of felony
• Felony in the archives
• The language of anger
• Cultural understanding of anger
• Confession and circumstantial inquiry
• Guilt assessment
• Tales of judging
• The mind and comportment of judge and jury
• Conclusion.

This book explores the role of mens rea, broadly defined as a factor in jury assessments of guilt and innocence from the early thirteenth through the fourteenth century - the first two centuries of the English criminal trial jury. Drawing upon evidence from the plea rolls, but also relying heavily upon non-legal textual sources such as popular literature and guides for confessors, Elizabeth Papp Kamali argues that issues of mind were central to jurors' determinations of whether a particular defendant should be convicted, pardoned, or acquitted outright. Demonstrating that the word 'felony' itself connoted a guilty state of mind, she explores the interplay between social conceptions of guilt and innocence and jury behavior. Furthermore, she reveals a medieval understanding of felony that involved, in its paradigmatic form, three essential elements: an act that was reasoned, was willed in a way not constrained by necessity, and was evil or wicked in its essence.
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