Civil Law in Early Modern England Civil Law in Early Modern England Author Brock Burns Author Kate McPherson Supervising Editor Kate McPherson Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England Encyclopedia EMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a

 University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform

Unless otherwise noted, intellectual copyright in EMEE Anthology pages is held by Kate McPherson on behalf of the contributors. Copyright on the TEI-XML markup is held by the University of Victoria on behalf of the LEMDO Team. The content and TEI-XML markup in this file are licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. This file is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and /or data; (2) this availability statement must remain in the file; (3) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except for quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (4) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO. Neither the content nor the code in this file is licensed for training large language models (LLMs), ingestion into an LLM, or any use in any artificial intelligence applications; such uses are considered to be commercial uses and are strictly prohibited.

Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Brock Burns and Kate McPherson, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines

This document uses Canadian English spelling

 Document Types All documents in LEMDO are either born-digital documents or primary documents. Within those two general categories, LEMDO offers additional ways to categorize a file. Born-digital Born-digital documents are anything other than primary texts Critical Critical material, such as a general introduction or a textual introduction. Responsibilities Responsibilities Author A person, family, or organization responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content, regardless of media type (e.g., printed text, spoken word, electronic text, tactile text) or genre (e.g., poems, novels, screenplays, blogs). Use also for persons, etc., creating a new work by paraphrasing, rewriting, or adapting works by another creator such that the modification has substantially changed the nature and content of the original or changed the medium of expression. LEMDO uses the term author in two contexts: (1) to indicate the author of a primary work or document (such as Hamlet), and (2) to indicate the author of a secondary text (such as the Critical Introduction to <title level="m">Hamlet, by David Bevington). Editor A person, family, or organization contributing to a resource by revising or elucidating the content, e.g., adding an introduction, notes, or other critical matter. An editor may also prepare a resource for production, publication, or distribution. For major revisions, adaptations, etc., that substantially change the nature and content of the original work, resulting in a new work, see author. LEMDO uses the general term editor only in edition metadata and only to indicate when a person is responsible for editing all parts of an edition. Otherwise, use the more granular terms to describe the precise nature of the editorial role. Supervising Editor An editor who supervises the work of a student editor. Copy Editor LEMDO uses the term owner for the person who checks facts, quotations, and citations; may make formatting changes; may convert from one citation style to another; may suggest wording changes; and enforces conformity with the project style guide. Markup Editor A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. Gloss needed. Copyright Holder A person or organization to whom copy and legal rights have been granted or transferred for the intellectual content of a work. The copyright holder, although not necessarily the creator of the work, usually has the exclusive right to benefit financially from the sale and use of the work to which the associated copyright protection applies. Normally the editor is the copyright holder for an LEMDO edition. EMEE Keywords Culture Learn about the customs, beliefs, and daily lives of people in early modern England. Daily Life Law Published file. Updated metadata proofed updated author respStmt. added image citation and figure. Fixed capitalization in source titles. Created File. Michael Best Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

 Brock Burns Brock Burns

Brock Burns was a student at Utah Valley University.

 Leah Hamby Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

 Navarra Houldin Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

 Kate McPherson Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

 LEMDO Team The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors. University of Victoria https://www.uvic.ca/
John Payne’s engraving on the frontispiece and title page of Edward Coke’s The Fourth Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England: Concerning the Jurisdiction of the Courts, 2nd ed, Courtesy of Wikimedia. Public Domain.
History of Legal Systems

Throughout the middle ages and into the early modern period, European law was divided into two primary categories: Canon Law, regarding issues ranging from marriage to wills and supervised by religious leaders Secular law, or civil law, administered by the courts of the monarch

Legal scholars draw a distinction between common law (uncodified) and civil law (codified by statutes), but this entry uses civil law more broadly to refer to the entire secular judicial system in early modern England.

Prior to the reign of Henry II (1154–1189), England lacked a centralized mechanism for dispensing justice. Interpretations of laws and legal proceedings varied widely among localities. Henry II created different courts and appointed justices in order to implement a more consistent system of justice. This new system became known as Common Law and was based on the principle that rulings made by the King’s court were made according to the common custom of the realm as opposed to local decisions.

Common Law Courts versus Courts of Equity

Henry II’s consolidation of secular justice gave rise to two parallel court systems: common law courts and courts of equity, both of which dealt with criminal cases and civil disputes.

Common law courts resolved litigation mainly through legal precedent, or the judicial decisions already made in previous cases and maintained over time through court records. These courts dealt with cases involving real property and contracts. Courts were presided over by a judge, and verdicts were reached with juries of twelve men of equal social status as the defendant. Common law courts were often tedious and inflexible, susceptible to corruption, and could award only monetary damages. Rivalries among these courts also developed as they competed for business and influence.

There were three kinds of common law courts: Court of Common Pleas: the lowest court that handled the bulk of disputes among private citizens. Verdicts could be appealed to the Court of the King’s Bench. Court of the King’s Bench: concerned with cases involving the monarch and business not claimed by other courts. Court of the Exchequer Chamber: specialized in crown financial rights and heard cases referred by the Court of the King’s Bench.

The limitations of the common law courts led to instances of injustice and gave rise to the second court system, the courts of equity. The courts of equity were not bound by legal precedent and instead derived their authority directly from the monarch and Privy Council, which gave them far greater power. While the goal of common law courts was to make the injured party whole, the courts of equity were concerned with providing equitable relief. In addition to awarding monetary damages, these courts could impose injunctions that compelled a party to do or refrain from doing a specified action. Despite their considerable power, these courts were often considered more fair than other courts.

The primary courts of equity included: Court of Chancery: presided over by the Lord Chancellor, this was the most powerful court. Court of the Star Chamber: presided over by Privy Councilors, this court handled issues concerning the king’s peace, such as treason, espionage, disorderly conduct, and other crimes. Court of Requests: concerned with cases involving the poor and servants of the monarch. Court of the Admiralty: dealt with cases abroad or at sea. Ecclesiastical courts: operated under the purview of the church and handled moral offenses.

The Law and Society

The era was highly litigious, and its legal system underwent dramatic changes. Not only did legal institutions and practices transform but also interpretations of law. For example, the Treason Act of 1351 identified an inferior form of treason (betrayal of the monarch) called petty treason, or the slaying of a person to whom one owed obedience, such as a husband or master. This law had specifically distinguished petty treason from the charge of murder, which could be mitigated by various factors, and mandated that petty treason and high treason be prosecuted the same way and carry the same harsh punishment of death. However, starting in the 1630s, the interpretation of petty treason shifted to being considered a category of murder, such as manslaughter, which could be mitigated by extenuating circumstances like provocation.

Literature and Law

The subject of the law also became an interest of writers during this period. Shakespeare, for instance, held a deep interest and technical knowledge of the law, which he represented in some of his works, such as The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, and The Winter’s Tale. Scholar Paul Raffield argues that Measure for Measure explores the ways in which rivalries among competing courts affect the lives of everyday people. The court scenes that Shakespeare depicts are not set in England, so they do not mirror English legal practices precisely, but they may indicate some public perception of the law as not fully committed to rendering justice.

Key Print Sources Curran, Kevin. Shakespeare and Judgment. Edinburgh University Press, 2017. Lockwood, Matthew. From Treason to Homicide: Changing Conceptions of the Law of Petty Treason in Early Modern England. Journal of Legal History, vol. 34, no. 1, 2013, pp. 31–49. Raffield, Paul. The Trials of Shakespeare: Courtroom Drama and Early Modern English Law. Law and Humanities, vol. 8, no. 1, 2014, pp. 53–76.
Key Online Sources Best, Michael. The Civil Law. Shakespeare’s Life and Times.Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/history/crime%20and%20the%20law/civil.html. Accessed 7 Feb. 2023. Jokinen, Anniina. Common Law. Luminarium, 13 April 2009, https://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/commonlaw.htm. Accessed 16 Oct. 2018. English Law and the Role of the Lord Chancellor (1485–1625). Tudor Times, https://tudortimes.co.uk/politics-economy/english-law-and-the-role-of-the-lord-chancellor-1485-1625. Accessed 17 Oct. 2018.
Image Source Payne, John. Frontispiece and title page of Edward Coke, The Fourth Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England: Concerning the Jurisdiction of the Courts (2nd ed.) 1648. Engraving. Wikimedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_Coke,_The_Fourth_Part_of_the_Institutes_of_the_Laws_of_England_(2nd_ed,_1648,_frontispiece_and_title_page)_-_20131124.jpg.