ME4707 LAW AND SOCIETY IN ENGLAND c. 870 - 1220
   
Lecturer Dr John Hudson (Room 11, 71 South Street)
   
Credits 60
   
Availability Not available 2008-9
   
Class Hour  
   
Description This course examines the development and functioning of law within mediaeval English society. Topics covered include the prevention and prosecution of crime, changes in land law, and the development of legal learning. The emphasis is upon the relationship between law and the political, social and intellectual life of the time. Close analysis of texts will encourage the development of original argument in a number of neglected fields.
   
Basic Reading
  • J. Hudson, The Formation of the English Common Law (London, 1996)
  • D. M. Stenton, English Justice between the Norman Conquest and  Magna Carta (London, 1965)
  • P. Wormald, 'Frederic William Maitland and the earliest English law', in P. Wormald, ed., Legal Culture in the Early Medieval West (Oxford, 1999)
   

Course Structure

One two to three-hour meeting per week
   
Assessment 60% examination - two 3-hour papers        
40% course work inclusive of one oral assessment
   

Learning Outcomes

  • analysis of documents

  • capacity to construct original historical arguments

  • mastery of wide range of reading
   
Restrictions Available only to students in the second year of the Honours Programme