Providing a fresh examination of the relationship between literary and legal communities, Communal Justice in Shakespeare's England examines the literature of the communal justice in early modern England.

"An ideal introduction to the rich history of criminal justice charting all its main developments from the dooms of Anglo-Saxon times to the rise of the Common Law, struggles for political, legislative and judicial ascendency and the formation of the innovative Criminal Justice System of today."-back cover.

Leading scholars in the field analyze Shakespeare's plays to show how their dramatic content shapes issues debated in conflicts arising from the creation and application of law. Individual essays focus on such topics such as slander, revenge, and royal prerogative; these studies reveal the problems confronting early modern English men and women.

A social history of how murder was committed, investigated, and punished in Stuart England examines a range of specific cases while discussing the seventeenth-century public's fascination with violence as reflected in its overflowing courtrooms and numerous crime-inspired works of art.

Shuger's study of Measure to Measure offers a sweeping reinterpretation of English political thought in the aftermath of the Reformation, one that focuses not on the tension between Crown and Parliament but on the relation of the sacred to the state.