This collection of essays by British, American and French scholars uses the records of the law in Western Europe from the fall of Rome to the nineteenth century in an attempt to outline a social history of the West considered as a history of human relations. The primary themes are dispute, arbitration and conjugal relations; the primary influences considered are feud, Christianity and the state. The contributions are discussed overall by an anthropologist lawyer, Simon Roberts, who writes an anthropological introduction, and by the editor in a short historical postscript. The aim has been to strike a new note in social history by attending more closely to actual people and their actual relations; by drawing on the resources of anthropology, legal history, the history of religious feelings and institutions, and of states, to illuminate their behaviour; and by combining the efforts of scholars representing a diversity of intellectual traditions and a long perspective of human experience.

This wide-ranging volume advances our understanding of law and empire in the early modern world. Distinguished contributors expose new dimensions of legal pluralism in the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Ottoman empires. In-depth analyses probe such topics as the shifting legal privileges of corporations, the intertwining of religious and legal thought, and the effects of clashing legal authorities on sovereignty and subjecthood. Case studies show how a variety of individuals engage with the law and shape the contours of imperial rule. The volume reaches from Peru to New Zealand to Europe to capture the varieties and continuities of legal pluralism and to probe the analytic power of the concept of legal pluralism in the comparative study of empires. For legal scholars, social scientists, and historians, Legal Pluralism and Empires, 1500-1850 maps new approaches to the study of empires and the global history of law.

Legal history has usually been written in terms of writs and legislation, and the development of legal doctrine. Christopher Brooks, in this series of essays roughly half of which are previously unpublished, approaches the law from two different angles: the uses made of courts and the fluctuations in the fortunes of the legal profession. Based on extensive original research, his work has helped to redefine the parameters of British legal history, away from procedural development and the refinement of legal doctrine and towards the real impact that the law had in society. He also places the law into a wider social and political context, showing how changes in the law often reflected, but at the same time influenced, changes in intellectual assumptions and political thought. Lawyers as a profession flourished in the second half of the sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth century. This great age of lawyers was followed by a decline in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, reflecting both a decline in litigation and the perception of the law as slow, artificially complicated and ruinously expensive. In Lawyers, Litigation and Society, 1450-1900, Christopher Brooks also looks at the sorts of cases brought before different courts, showing why particular courts were used and for what reasons, as well as showing why the popularity of individual courts changed over the years.

Women in early 18th century Spanish Colonial New Mexico had rights and privileges under Spanish law that were not enjoyed by other women in North America until the late 19th and early 20th century. Women were considered separate entities under the law and valuable members of Spanish society. As such, they could own property, inherit in their own name, and act as court witnesses. In particular they could make accusations and denunciations to the local alcalde mayor and governor, which they frequently did. The documents in this book show that Spanish Colonial women were aware of their rights and took advantage of them to assert themselves in the struggling communities of the New Mexican frontier. In the documents, the women are shown making complaints of theft, physical and verbal abuse by their husbands or other women, and of non-payment of dowries or other inheritance. Other documents are included showing men accusing women of misrepresenting property ownership and dowry payments and of adultery and slander. Spain was a legalistic society and both women and men used the courts to settle even minor matters. Because the court proceedings were written down by a scribe and stored in the archives, many documents still exist. From these, thirty-one have been selected allowing us to hear the words of some outspoken Spanish women and the sometimes angry men, speaking their minds in court about their spouses, lovers of their spouses, children, and relatives, as well as their land, livestock and expected inheritance. The documents transcribed and translated in this book are a small number of the existing documents held in Santa Fe at the Spanish Archives of New Mexico, at the Bancroft Library at University of California, the Archivo General de la Nacion in Mexico City, and elsewhere. A synopsis, editor’s notes, maps, and biographical notes are provided. The material can be considered a companion, in part, to Ralph Emerson Twitchell’s 1914 two volumes, The Spanish Archives of New Mexico, available in new editions from Sunstone Press. *** “This is an important work from Linda Tigges and Richard Salazar dealing with early eighteenth century women and the law. However their court cases were decided, these Spanish Colonial women were successful in the legacy they left for future generations. If you are a twelfth generation New Mexican or a newcomer, you will find this work priceless.” —Henrietta Martinez Christmas

This study of Castilian widows, based on extensive analysis of literary and archival sources, provides insight into the complex mechanisms lying behind the formulation of gender boundaries and the pragmatic politics of everyday life in the early modern world.

In The Protectors of Indians in the Royal Audience of Lima: History, Careers and Legal Culture, 1575-1775 Mauricio Novoa offers an account of the institution that developed in the vice-royalty of Peru for the protection of Indians before the high courts of justice. Making use of historical materials, Novoa provides a comprehensive view on the formation of the legal elite in Lima during the colonial period; reviews the litigation undertaken by indigenous plaintiffs, and explains the legal culture that allowed the development of juristic doctrine around the Indian personal status.