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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

I was really touched to receive the Walter Williams teaching award from the William & Mary Law class of 2026. They're a really special group. I had almost half of them in Trusts & Estates last fall.

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Christmas came early, in the form of a box with my editor copies of most of the recent books out with Studies in Legal History @universitypress.cambridge.org. It was a real pleasure to work with these two authors on their first books. @zacharyherz.bsky.social

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Some of my students were filming a video for graduation and asked themselves "who in the law school would appreciate a visit from the mace?" They guessed right!

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

I was just thinking about this piece again the other day, on the ways in which 13th-cent. monarchs treated pardons much like they treated their almsgiving, so that Hen. III could pardon a homicide "for the salvation of the soul of Louis, first-born son of the king of France." I enjoyed writing it

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

The original rectorial biretta of Vilnius University has been re-discovered in the treasury of Vilnius Cathedral. This biretta would have been worn by the Oxonian Adam Brock when he was Rector in 1602-1605 www.bpmuziejus.lt/naujienos/at...

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Hidetaka Hirota @hidehirota.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

If you study legal history, please consider submitting a proposal for the 2026 conference of the American Society for Legal History in Banff, Canada in November! The Program Committee accepts proposals until March 24! #ASLH #legalhistory 🗃️ aslh.net/2026-annual-...

aslh.net

2026 Annual Meeting Call for Papers | American Society for Legal History

Call for Papers 2026 American Society for Legal History Annual Meeting (November 12 - 14, 2026) The Program Committee of the American Society for Legal History invites proposals for the 2026 meeting t...

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Excited to announce that "Medieval Treatises and the Judicial Search for a Useable Past," which I wrote together with my colleague and friend Alli Larsen, has been accepted for publication in the Stanford Law Review. Draft is available on SSRN. Just follow the link.

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

A little over a week ago I was up at Catholic U. to speak on a panel with John Langbein on the role of priests in the early history of the English common law. The panel was recorded if anyone is interested: cit.catholic.edu/events/the-p...

cit.catholic.edu

The Priesthood in the Evolution of Anglo-American Criminal Procedure – CIT

William M. M. Kamin | John Langbein | Thomas McSweeney

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

Excited to see Maurits den Hollander’s Court, Credit, and Capital in print with Studies in Legal History at CUP. Court, Credit, and Capital uncovers how Amsterdam’s 17th-century insolvency court transformed insolvency law—from punishment to rehabilitation 1/3

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Really excited for @zacharyherz.bsky.social's new book, The God and the Bureaucrat: Roman Law, Imperial Sovereignty, and Other Stories, out now with Studies in Legal History at CUP. 1/6

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

I was honored to receive this at the law school graduation ceremony yesterday. Congratulations to the William & Mary Law School class of 2025!

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Happy to do this for the grads and families. I'm glad so many people are interested in the history of the law school. Enough people signed up that we had to split it into two tours today!

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Alice Taylor @ajt55.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Extremely pleased to announce (and first ever post here) that Danica Summerlin and my special issue on 'law beyond the legal renaissance', funded by @britishacademy.bsky.social, is now out, with open access introduction www.tandfonline.com/toc/flgh20/4... .

tandfonline.com

The Journal of Legal History

Volume 46, Issue 1 of The Journal of Legal History

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Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

Sometimes working with manuscripts gets us really, really close to the people from the past allowing us to hear their voices. This is a story of a letter from a schoolgirl to her teacher, written probably sometime at the end of the 9th or the beginning of the 10th century. A thread 🧵 #medievalsky /1

A faint writing, the text is in Latin and it reads: Domina magistra felhin date mihi licenciam in hac nocte vigilare cum magistra adalu et ego vobis ambabus manibus confirmo atque iuro ut per totam noctem declinare volo aut legere aut pro seniore nostro cantare Valete et ut peto facite. (Abbreviations have been resolved in this transcription).

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Kenneth F. Duggan 🇨🇦 @kfduggan.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Murder at the Medieval Mill Medieval millers were not always well liked and it’s not uncommon to read in criminal court records that a miller had been killed. This person leaving a windmill sure looks like they regret doing something nefarious at the mill with the mallet they're holding. 🧵1/5

A person wearing a dark tunic is leaving a windmill, presumably at the end of a hard day's work. The person is carrying a mallet and has a look on their face like they've done something wrong. Maybe they've killed the miller?
Reference: Taymouth Hours, BL, Yates Thompson 13 (14th century)

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Paul Gowder @gowder.io · 25/11/2024

I'm chairing this search, and we're really eager for applicants!

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Happy Birthday, Phi Beta Kappa! 248 years ago today, on December 5th, 1776, a group of William & Mary students met at the Raleigh Tavern on Duke of Gloucester Street and established Phi Beta Kappa. The original minutes, running from 1776 to 1781, are held by Swem Library.

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

Happy birthday, William & Mary Law School! On December 4th, 1779, the Board of Visitors met and reorganized the college, establishing a chair in law, the first in the United States. From the Virginia Gazette, December 18, 1779.

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Kenneth F. Duggan 🇨🇦 @kfduggan.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Correcting errors in medieval records: You listed the wrong person as a killer in a court record. What do you do? Well, you could draw a line through the name, as the clerk did in this homicide case from 1255 when he accidentally listed Walter le Stock as the killer instead of Walter Stuttuk. 🧵1/4

A record of a homicide case from 1255 in which the clerk recorded the wrong name for the killer, then put a line through the incorrect name and added the correct name. The record is written in brownish-black ink in abbreviated Latin on parchment.
Reference: TNA, JUST 1/300C

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Medieval Murder Maps @medimurdermaps.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Do you want to stay up to date with scholarship on late medieval economic and social history? @stephemmabrown.bsky.social's review of the literature published in 2023 is now available at Economic History Review doi.org/10.1111/ehr.... #MedievalSky #EconHist

doi.org

<em>The Economic History Review</em> | EHS Journal | Wiley Online Library

Click on the article title to read more.

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Kenneth F. Duggan 🇨🇦 @kfduggan.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Medieval villages were often tasked with transporting people to gaol. This could be dangerous and expensive business. Friends and family of criminals could try to free the person through violence or bribery. And if a captive escaped, then the village would collectively be fined £5–£8! 🧵1/5

A group of people are in a procession in the marginalia at the bottom of a manuscript. There are eight people in total. The person at the front is playing a fiddle, while the person at the back is banging a set of drums that is being carried by (what appears to be) a child. The other five people in the middle are holding hands.

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Kenneth F. Duggan 🇨🇦 @kfduggan.bsky.social · 09/11/2024

I've put together a legal history starter pack for anyone interested in the history of crime & punishment, law, policing, social control, and violence. Please let me know if you want to (or know someone who should) be added to the list. go.bsky.app/Vg4M4V5

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Dr Renske Janssen🟥 @renskejanssen.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Proud and happy to share that my first book 'Marginalized Religion and the Law in the Roman Empire' (based on my PhD research) will be out with OUP this December! Interested? Pre-order now via global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Cover of the book 'Marginalized Religion and the Law in the Roman Empire', by K.P.S. Janssen. The background is an ochre yellow. The bottom left side of the cover is taken up by an ancient relief of Daniel in the lions' den, depicting a naked Daniel with his hands spread, standing up to his ankles in a pit with a lion on either side. Two figures in tunics or togas are standing behind him, with one of them carrying a basket.

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Adam Bishop @adammbishop.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Reading some 11th-century charters

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Kenneth F. Duggan 🇨🇦 @kfduggan.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Agnes, daughter of Stephen, was accidentally killed when she was struck by the sail of a windmill in Herringswell, Suffolk, sometime around the year 1240. Accidents such as these (death by the arm of the windmill) are not common in the records I use in my research🧵1/3...

Two people working near a windmill from the fourteenth-century manuscript known as MS Bodley 264 (which is housed at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford). One person is on a horse and seems perilously close to the windmill. The other is carrying a sack to the windmill.

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 18/05/2024

We had a reception for graduation award recipients yesterday, so I set this out for the students who were being inducted into the Order of the Coif. Congratulations, class of 2024!

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Daniel F Gosling @thegozfather.bsky.social · 09/05/2024

Who was using the Court of Chancery during the civil wars and interregnum (1640-1660)? What sort of cases were brought? Want to find out? Applications now open for a funded PhD studentship supervised by David Foster (UCL Laws) and myself (TNA). www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DHI516/a...

jobs.ac.uk

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) Studentship – Law & Equity in Flux: The Court of Chancery during the Civil War & Interregnum (c. 1640-1660) at UCL

jobs.ac.uk are now advertising a AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) Studentship – Law & Equity in Flux: The Court of Chancery during the Civil War & Interregnum (c. 1640-1660). Discover exc...

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 01/05/2024

Ducks keep appearing on my name plate. Some of the new ones appear to be royal. And I'm pretty sure the guy on the end is a spy.

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 30/04/2024

Just did my annual reading of the Legend of Dancing Point to try to break the tension before my students started their property exam. It's about a local property dispute between Phillip Lightfoot and the Devil. As you might expect, they settled it with a dancing competition.

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Gautham Rao (pronounced: Knicks in 5) @gauthamrao.bsky.social · 15/04/2024

The American Society for Legal History announces a new dissertation prize! The Max Planck–ASLH Dissertation Prize for European Legal History in Global Perspective: -3 month fellowship at the Planck Institute in Frankfurt -€2,500 stipend -insurance, travel and housing allowance Instructions below

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Stephen Hopkins @phil-lol-ogist.bsky.social · 27/03/2024

Delighted to report the oldest attestation of the phrase "silly goose" I've ever seen This Old Norse skaldic stanza (ca. 1300) calls a man a fool for refusing to learn about the law. He's called a "gassi", lit: a goose

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 12/03/2024

I think Frank Herbert really missed the opportunity to explore some of the most important implications of the power to see every possible future at once. For instance, it would make you really good at solving rule against perpetuities problems. #Dunepropertylaw

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 08/03/2024

I had a nice surprise yesterday: I found a positive review of my book by David Ibbetson in the LQR that I had missed: "Tom McSweeney has produced a first-class work, opening up new lines of inquiry into the development of the common law in the latter part of the 13th century."

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 29/02/2024

In 13th-century England, a defendant who had been summoned to appear in court could, in certain types of cases, claim the essoin (excuse) of bed-sickness, claiming he was too ill to rise from his bed. He would be given a delay of a year and a day. But what do you do in a leap year? 1/2

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 13/02/2024

It's 1200, and you're the Abbot of Ramsey (congrats!). At Lent your tenants come calling with their annual rents of preserved eels. - 60,000 from Welles - 4,000 from Chatteris - 125 from Little Bedford - 5260 from Wisbeck etc. So what do you do with all of these eels? 1/4 🧪🗃️

Meme. Medieval drawing of a monk, leaning on a staff and holding a book. He has a thin tonsure, and a thin face, and thin fingers. His is holding the book open with his left hand, but in a very awkward way by his side. His fingers looks splayed like a spider on ice skates, and he appears to be holding his place in the book with a kind of death grip. By contrast, the hand holding onto his staff looks relaxed; it curls easily around the wood, and the monk appears to be leaning into it a bit. Either his desperation hasn't traveled to his right hand yet, or his chill hasn't made it to his left.

His robe is a lovely salmon color, but he's not thinking about salmon right now. He looks concerned, as if he has suddenly been given quite a lot of eels. He's been looking in copy of The Rule (aka. "Big Ben's Guide to Monking Around") for answers, but the saint didn't write about eels. He just ate them.

Meme text reads:
"The didn't
cover this in seminary"

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 08/02/2024

February 8, 1693: "it shall be called and denominated, forever, the College of William and Mary, in Virginia." Happy Charter Day!

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Kenneth F. Duggan 🇨🇦 @kfduggan.bsky.social · 03/02/2024

One of my favourite medieval laws: Concerning vampires (strigis), which do not exist, no inquiry shall be made. (From the early 12th-century Laws of King Coloman of Hungary, c.57)

The image shows Christopher Lee as Dracula, with blood on his lips and a victim in his arms. In the image, Dracula looks very troubled, perhaps because he’s just been told that he doesn’t exist by someone reading medieval Hungarian laws.

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 02/02/2024

Yesterday, I gave a presentation to the Colonial Williamsburg courthouse interpreters on county courts in Colonial Virginia (and how they were different from English courts). As a thank you, they took me up in the cupola of the capitol building!

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CEMS Exeter @cemsexeter.bsky.social · 11/01/2024

Funded PhDs! Material Culture of Wills, England 1540-1790 by Jane Whittle and @lsangha.bsky.social is recruiting two fully funded PhDs to start September, one on gender and material culture and one on global commodities #EarlyModern www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin... www.exeter.ac.uk/study/fundin...

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 09/01/2024

My latest piece, on the discussions of appeals in Magna Carta, is out. A lot of people gave me really good comments, but I want to especially thank Dick Helmholz and Charlie Donahue. In this article I disagree with some arguments they’ve made, but they were incredibly gracious about it.

lawreview.uchicago.edu

Appealing Magna Carta | The University of Chicago Law Review

In 1999, Professor Richard Helmholz published Magna Carta and the Ius Commune, in which he argued that some of the ideas and language found in Magna Carta provide evidence that the early common law wa...

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The Cromwell Museum @cromwellmuseum.bsky.social · 09/01/2024

#OnThisDay 9 January 1649 the House of Commons voted that the existing Great Seal of England should be broken up and a new one engraved by which the authority of the House of Lords was no longer recognised. Copy of the Commonwealth Great Seal in our collection. #17thCentury #OTD

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Thomas McSweeney @mcsweeney1693.bsky.social · 02/12/2023

I went to the dedication of the George Wythe Library at the Law School last night and guess who I met: George Wythe!

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