In the eighteenth century the justices of the peace governed England. While Parliament debated questions of trade, taxation, and foreign policy, the justices administered England's internal affairs. So powerful were the later Stuart and early Hanoverian justices that they were virtually independent, and it is their independence which makes them fascinating. Neither the central government nor Parliament told them what to do, closely supervised their activity, or even insured that they at at all. What tid the justices choose to do? In what manner did they do it? why, indeed, did they assume the burdens of local government? Norma Landau examines the office of justice of the peace from the viewpoint of the justices themselves, delineating those ideals and inducements inherent in local government which prompted the English elite to assume their distinctive role as paternal rulers. Through analysis of the appointment of justices, the political and social composition of the bench, the institutions of local government, the justices' administrative and judicial activities, and manuals written for justices, this study traces the evolution of the elite's conduct of government an dof their concept of their relation to those they governed. Through analysis of the appointment of justices, the political and social composition of the bench, the institutions of local government, the justices' administrative and judicial activities, and manuals written for justices, this study traces the evolution of the elite's conduct of government and of their concept of their relation to those they governed. Because the justices were so important, discussion of their role touches upon some of the major debates in current historiography: the debate on the nature of politics; on the relation of rulers to the governed in a "deferential society"; on the definition of the elite in early modern society; on the course of of administrative development; and on the relation of law to images of authority. This portrait of the justices illuminates a crucial stage in the tranformation of England's rulers from local patriarchs to administrators for the nation. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.

The Common Peace traces the attitudes behind the enforcement of the criminal law in early modern England. Focusing on five stages in prosecution (arrest, bail, indictment, conviction and sentencing), the book uses a variety of types of sources - court records, biographical information, state papers, legal commentaries, popular and didactic literature - to reconstruct who actually enforced the criminal law and what values they brought to its enforcement. A close study of the courts in eastern Sussex between 1592 and 1640 allows Dr Herrup to show that an amorphous collection of modest property holders participated actively in the legal process. These yeomen and husbandmen who appeared as victims, constables, witnesses and jurors were as important to the credibility of the law as were the justices and judges. The uses of the law embodied the ideas of these middling men about not only law and order but also religion and good government. By arguing that legal administration was part of the routine agenda of obligation for middling property holders, Dr Herrup shows how the expectations produced by legal activities are important for understanding the decades immediately before the outbreak of the English Civil War. As the first book to use early seventeenth-century legal records outside of Essex, The Common Peace adopts an explicitly comparative framework, attempting to trace the ways that social conditions influenced legal process as well as law enforcement in various counties. By blending social history, legal history and political history, this volume offers a complement to more conventional studies of legal records and of local government.

A detailed handbook to the English and Welsh Quarter Sessions records, their background, and how they can be used by genealogists and historians. For over 500 years, between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Justices of the Peace were the embodiment of government for most of our ancestors. The records they and other county officials kept are invaluable sources for local and family historians, and Stuart Raymond's handbook is the first in-depth guide to them. He shows how and why they were created, what information they contain, and how they can be accessed and used. Justices of the Peace met regularly in Quarter Sessions, judging minor criminal matters, licensing alehouses, paying pensions to maimed soldiers, overseeing roads and bridges, and running gaols and hospitals. They supervised the work of parish constables, highway surveyors, poor law overseers, and other officers. And they kept extensive records of their work, which are invaluable to researchers today. As Stuart Raymond explains, the lord lieutenant, the sheriff, the assize judges, the clerk of the peace, and the coroner, together with a variety of subordinate officials, also played important roles in county government. Most of them left records that give us detailed insights into our ancestors’ lives. The wide range of surviving county records deserve to be better known and more widely used, and Stuart Raymond’s book is a fascinating introduction to them. Praise for Tracing Your Ancestors in County Records “This is invaluable stuff: while other books may mention the records, this volume provides a useful understanding of the processes and public philosophies that led to them in the first place. There are plenty of references for further reading, too. . . . An excellent textbook exploring the mechanics of local record-keeping.” —Your Family History (UK) “This great introduction to county records will soon have you chomping at the bit to head to your nearest archive to begin exploring beyond the records available online. Well-known family and local historian (and Family Tree contributor) Stuart A. Raymond provides a concise and easy guide to the rich seam of records you can expect to find (and those you can't), going back 500 years to when Justices of the Peace were the embodiment of local government for our ancestors. There’s a wealth of information to get your teeth into.” —Family Tree (UK)

The eighteenth-century English game laws have long been synonymous with petty tyranny. By imposing a property qualification on sportsmen, they effectively denied all but country gentlemen the right to take game or even to possess a gun. Those who challenged the gentry's monopoly were fined or imprisoned, usually after only a summary hearing by the local justice of the peace. In the early nineteenth century, it was claimed that one out of every four inmates in England's prisons was an offender against the game laws. Bitterly denounced at the time, they have continued to be condemned by historians as arbitrary, savage and unjust. This book is the first full scholarly examination of the English game laws. Based on material drawn from over two dozen archives - including judicial records, estate correspondence and personal diaries - it attempts to explain what the laws actually were, why they were passed, how they were enforced and why they were eventually repealed. The picture which emerges from this investigation challenges the conventional wisdom about the game laws in a number of important respects.

Historical background and the operations of the court.