Posted by Sara M. Butler, 9 November 2018. When John of Salisbury (ca. 1115-1180) decried the dishonesty of lawyers in his Policraticus, he targeted the incomprehensibility of their legalese, complain...

Join The National Archives for ‘Pipe rolls – publishing the ‘most splendid’ records’.  In 1711, the pipe rolls were described as the ‘most splendid’ records in the royal archives, next […]

A collaborative, interdisciplinary workshop exploring early modern law, government and politics through new approaches.

I have just found this highly unusual case of an apparent intersex person named Margaret Bradley of Hackney, Middlesex, who in 1522 was sued by her/their* husband Christopher to annul their marriage. ...

scholarship - legal history - empire - conference - 2021

Just how far did people seeking sanctuary in late medieval England flee, and why?

This post is part of our 'The People and the Law' Online Symposium, a series exploring early modern English legal sources. Laura Flannigan is a Junior Research Fellow at St John’s College, Oxford Univ...

The University of Bristol Law School is delighted to host the 26th British Legal History Conference, which will take place between 3 and 6 July 2024. The conference theme is 'Insiders and Outsiders in...

Women have been accessing the Palace of Westminster for centuries, yet sanitary facilities have not always been provided. Chloe Challender, a PhD candidate working on a collaborative project between t...

In this guest post, Richard Ireland posits a place for *delight* in legal history, examining 'sketches taken from life' in a nineteenth-century circuit court.

What happened when an alleged sorcercer appeared in Star Chamber?

As the city celebrates 650 years since the granting of its county status, Bristol Archives and Bristol Central Library have teamed up to shed some light on some of our most beautiful and precious medi...