Bücher der Reihe Studies in Legal History

Drawing on a wide array of sources, including plea rolls, guides for confessors, and popular literature of the era, this book argues that issues of mind were central to jurors' determinations of whether a particular defendant should be convicted, pardoned, or acquitted outright in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century England.

Examining the emergence of the modern conception of free labour - labour that could not be legally compelled, even though voluntarily agreed upon - Steinfeld explains how English law dominated the early American colonies, making violation of al labour agreements punishable by imprisonment.

Focusing primarily on the exclusion of the Chinese, this study analyzes the debates surrounding immigration law and its enforcement during the height of nativist sentiment in the early-20th century. The author argues fundamental principles were established which still dominate immigration law.

An interpretation of the history of inheritance among the English gentry and aristocracy. The text argues that one of the principal and determinative features of upper-class inheritance was the virtual exclusion of females from land holding.

Legal and political struggles in America redefined the place of agriculture in the industrial market. The author of this book aims to show that farms were adept at borrowing such legal forms as the corporate trust for their own purposes and obtaining legislative recognition of the new style.

James Oldham reviews developments in English common law during the 18th century, particularly the influence of Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, whose reforming work laid the foundations of modern English and American civil law.

Stephen Robertson provides a study of how American criminal courts dealt with the prosecution of sexual violence against children. His study, based on the previously unexamined files of the New York County district attorney's office, reveals the importance of child sexuality and sex crimes in twentieth-century American culture.

Selling the Church: The English Parish in Law, Commerce, and Religion, 1350-1550

A study of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan. It demonstrates how he inherited certain traditions; how he reshaped them in the light of his experience as a lawyer, political candidate and judge; and how he justified the vision of the law he wrote.

From the end of the Revolution until 1851, Virginia legislature turned down two-thirds of all petitions for divorce. Men and women faced a harsh legal system. In this book, Thomas Buckley explores the lives and legal struggles of those who challenged it.

Based on a detailed examination of New York case law, this text traces the efforts of citizens of diverse racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds to live together in the state between 1920 and 1980. It shows that a new legal ideology was created which aspired to liberty and equality for all.

Examines how debates over slavery in the three decades before the Civil War employed legal language to ""try"" the case for slavery in the court of public opinion via popular print media. This title argues that American literature of the era cannot be fully understood without an appreciation for the slavery debate in the courts and in print.

From 1852, until the Mormon Church's decision to abandon the practice in 1890, the battle over polygamy redefined religious liberty in America. This book discusses the ""Mormon question"" and its legacy in constitutional law and political theory.

Captures the paradox at the heart of American constitutional history. This title argues that the revolutionary transformation did not, therefore, consist of a conception of the constitution as a set of restrictions on the power of the state.

Shows how the Black Death triggered massive changes in both governance and law in fourteenth-century England, establishing the mechanisms by which the law adapted to social needs for centuries thereafter. Robert Palmer's book, based on all of the available legal records, establishes a genuinely new interpretation and chronology of these important legal changes.

Combining legal and social history, Bruce Mann explores the relationship between law and society from the mid-seventeenth century to the eve of the Revolution. Analysing a sample of more than five thousand civil cases from the records of local courts in Connecticut, he shows how once-neighbourly modes of disputing yielded to a legal system that treated neighbours and strangers alike.

Presents the first integrated comparative account of employment law, its enforcement, and its importance throughout the British Empire. Sweeping in its geographic and temporal scope, this volume tests the relationship between enacted law and enforced law in varied settings, with different social and racial structures, different economies, and different constitutional relationships to Britain.

Focusing on a single county at a time when the population grew from 24,000 to 246,000, the authors combine statistical analysis of documentary sources, contemporary newspaper accounts, and exploration in criminal case files to give a detailed reconstruction of the operations of the county's entire criminal justice system.

John Henry Schlegel recovers a largely ignored aspect of American Legal Realism, a movement that sought to bring the modern notion of empirical science into the study and teaching of law. He argues that empirical research was integral to Legal Realism, and he explores why this kind of research did not, finally, become a part of American law school curricula.

UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Nelson identifies three principal institutions involved in conflict resolution: the twon meeting, the church congregation, and the courts of law. He subsequently determines the type of cases over which each institution had jurisdiction and studies the procedures by which each functioned.

UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

The primary founder and guiding spirit of the Harvard Law School and the most prolific publicist of the nineteenth century, Story served as a member of the US Supreme Court from 1811 to 1845. His attitudes and goals as lawyer, politician, judge, and legal educator were founded on the republican values generated by the American Revolution.

UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Perhaps the greatest problem of medieval property law was that third parties often challenged transactions. By the eleventh century, many devices for attempting to forestall or defeat claims were in use. Tabuteau considers the nature and efficacy of these devices as well as the degree to which the consent of interested parties was necessary or advisable. Originally published in 1988.

A history of German criminology from Imperial Germany through the Weimar Republic to the end of the Third Reich. Drawing on primary sources, it shows that German biomedical research on crime predominated over sociological research and thus contributed to the rise of the eugenics movement.

Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, women's role in the Swedish economy was renegotiated and reconceptualised. Maria Agren chronicles changes in married women's property rights, revealing the story of Swedish women's property as not just a simple narrative of the erosion of legal rights, but a more complex tale of unintended consequences.

Investigating a wide range of problems in the development of English law, this collection of original essays honours the contributions of Samuel D. Thorne to the study of English legal history from the eleventh to the seventeenth century. The essays combine close study of legal texts and doctrines in their own setting with broader analysis of the interaction of legal and social change.

Birthright Citizens examines how black Americans transformed the terms of belonging for all Americans before the Civil War. They battled against black laws and threats of exile, arguing that citizenship was rooted in birth, not race. The Fourteenth Amendment affirmed this principle, one that still today determines who is a citizen.

Jessica K. Lowe tells the story of Commonwealth v. Crane, exposing deep rifts in post-Revolutionary Virginia and using it to unearth Revolutionary America's gripping debates over justice, criminal punishment, and equality before the law. She shows how post-Revolutionary Virginia was gripped by the question of what it means to make law 'sovereign'.