Late 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.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- List of figures, maps, plans and timelines
- Figures
- Figure 1: Court session of the trial of the duke of Alençon at Vendôme (1458), showing a layout similar to that of the sessions in the Grand Chambre in Paris. Illumination by Jean Fouquet in a manuscript of Boccacio’s On the fates of famous men (ca. 1459-
- Figure 2: Fragment of sentence from cause paper CP.E.169, including lecta et lata-entry (four bottom lines).
- Figure 3: List of bailiwicks and other jurisdictional entities in the Parlement’s register for 1319 (AN X1A8844, fol.4r). Each entry indicates the period during which the Parlement will receive cases originating in the concerned area.
- Figure 4: Arrêts in the Criminal register from 1345 (X2A5, fol.74r), including an arrêt in the case of Isabelle de Blanot (see Appendix 3.2).
- Figure 5: List of cases from the prévôté of Paris in the Parlement’s registers of 1319 (AN X1A8844, fol.21r).
- Figure 6: Consistory Court sentence written on the backside of a piece of parchment containing depositions (BIA CP.E.18).
- Figure 7: Consistory Court depositions on the frontside of the same piece of parchment. (BIA CP.E.18).
- Figure 8: Consistory Court sentence on single piece of parchment, possibly a minute (BIA CP.E.263).
- Figure 9: Draft of Consistory Court sentence (BIA CP.E.71).
- Figure 10: Fair copy of Consistory Court sentence (BIA CP.E.116).
- Figure 11: Page from the Council’s Th.2 register of 1370 (HUA 701-1.227, fol. 41v). This page contains mostly verdicts of banishment, but the first entry concerns a measure decided upon by the aldermen, Council and guild elders.
- Figure 12: Pages from the Raads dagelijks boek of 1403 (HUA: 701-1.13: RDB 1402-1408, fol. 18v-19r). The case of Jan de Keyzer is the first entry on fol. 18v.
- Figure 13: Pages from the Buurspraakboek of 1403 (HUA: 701-1.16: BSB 1402-1405, fol. 34v-35r). The case of Jan de Keyzer is the third entry on fol. 34v.
- Figure 14: Abbreviated latin in a (Lecta et) lata-entry in the Consistory Court’s cause papers (BIA CP.E.193).
- Maps
- Map 1: Sixteenth century map of the city of Utrecht (detail). With a few exceptions, the layout still follows that of the late medieval city.
- Map 2: Sixteenth century map of Paris (detail), showing the position of the Châtelet and Palais de la Cité.
- Map 3: Detail of sixteenth century map of Utrecht, showing locations of Council activity.
- Map 4: York Minster and its direct surroundings ca. 1100.
- Map 5: York Minster and its direct surroundings (ca.1279), showing the beginnings of an enclosed area to the north of the cathedral church.
- Map 6: York Minster and its direct surroundings (ca.1500), showing the Minster close as separated area, including several gateways.
- Plans
- Plan 1: Northern part of the Palais de la Cité (ca.1360). Arrows indicate the route taken into the Palais by litigants whose case was heard by the Parlement. Dark grey spaces are palace courtyards.
- Plan 2: Northern part of the Palais de la Cité (ca.1292). Arrows indicate the route taken into the Palais by litigants whose case was heard by the Parlement. Dark grey spaces are palace courtyards.
- Plan 3: Northern part of the Palais de la Cité (ca.1360), showing Palais layout of ca.1292.
- Plan 4: York Minster (late fifteenth century).
- Plan 5: Detail of the northern part of the Palais de la Cité (ca.1360), showing the Grande Chambre and its direct surroundings.
- Timelines
- Timeline 1: Council registers and books of bylaws (yellow) in Utrecht between 1300 and 1450. Dotted lines indicate periods for which entries were included retroactively in a particular corpus (Die Roese and Th.1/Th.2) or which saw only very occasional add
- Timeline 2: Textual output of the Parisian Parlement between 1250 and 1400, including the Olim, the civil and criminal registers, the anciens registres du greffe (Anc. reg.), and the counsel and pleading register (separate from 1394 onwards).
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Court records
- Comparing courts
- Communication, performance and scripting
- Structure of the book
- 1. Profiles: Three late medieval law courts
- The Council of Utrecht
- The Consistory Court of York
- The Parlement of Paris
- 2. Legal space
- The court as space
- Courts and urban space
- Spatial practice and accessibility
- Space and socio-legal messaging
- Inclusion and exclusion
- Conclusion: Legal space and the legalization of space
- 3. The rituality of court practice
- Ritual and legal action
- Utrecht: Forgiveness rituals
- York: The performance of judgement
- Paris: Performance and presence
- Conclusion: The language of legal acts
- 4. Legal text and social context
- Textualization
- Texts in court practice
- From society to text: Varieties of translation
- Text and society: Publishing practices
- Conclusion: Courts and court records
- 5. Court and society: The production and consumption of justice
- The court as composite unity
- Fields of legal speech
- Interaction and mediation between fields
- The legal process as socio-legal narrative
- Conclusion: Producing and consuming justice
- General conclusion
- Medieval law courts: General and local developments
- Scripting justice
- Communication processes and the negotiation of justice
- Scripted justice and historians
- Appendix 1: Utrecht
- 1.1 Stone fines (1385–1425)
- 1.2 Utrecht banishments (1385–1425)
- 1.3 Procedure of forgiveness (1385–1425)
- 1.4 Oath of the Utrecht council members
- Appendix 2: York
- 2.1 Cause papers (fourteenth century)
- 2.2 Oath of the Consistory Court advocates
- Appendix 3: Paris
- 3.1 Oath of the advocates of the Parlement of Paris
- 3.2 Oath of the proctors of the Parlement of Paris
- 3.3 Arrêt in the case of Isabelle de Blanot (1345)
- Bibliography
- Index
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