Law as Literature, Literature as Law c. 1200–1700

Clare Egan is a senior lecturer in medieval and early modern literature at Lancaster University, United Kingdom. She specialises in medieval to early modern performance, especially in relation to defamation, as explored in her recent monograph Performing Provincial Libel: Community Conflict in Early Modern England (2025). Prior to her current post, she was a research assistant at the University of Huddersfield and a visiting lecturer in early modern drama and the law at the University of Southampton. Clare completed her BA Hons English Literature, AHRC-funded MA in Medieval and Renaissance Culture, and AHRC-funded PhD on early modern libel at the University of Southampton.Sarah B. White is an assistant professor in the Law of Trusts and Co-Director of the History of Law and Governance Centre at the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. She specialises in medieval legal and ecclesiastical history, with expertise in court procedure, the legal profession, and the intersection of law and religion. Prior to her current post, she was a lecturer in medieval history at Lancaster University and a research fellow at the University of St Andrews on the ERC-funded comparative legal history project: Civil Law, Common Law, Customary Law. Sarah earned her BA Hons. in Medieval Studies at the University of Victoria, followed by an MA at the University of Toronto and a PhD in legal history at the University of St Andrews.

• INTRODUCTION Clare Egan and Sarah B. WhitePART 1: THE POETIC AND THE EPISODIC: LEGAL LEARNING, MNEMONIC DEVICES, AND LITERARY TROPES 1.1 Damp and Disorderly? Approaching ‘Part One’ of the Très ancien coutumier of Normandy from a Comparative PerspectiveWilliam Eves 1.2 Memory and Verse in Twelfth-Century Austrian Procedural WritingSarah B. White 1.3 Medieval Poetry in Hostiensis’s Lectura super decretalibus (1270): Literature as Law or Literature in Law? Further Considerations on the Use of Verses by the GlossatorsDavid De Concilio 1.4 The Scandal of the Stolen Purse: Narration, Reception, and the Literality of Crime in a Late-medieval Italian CourtLorenzo Caravaggi PART 2. AT THE STAR CHAMBER, AT THE GLOBE: LAW AS PERFORMANCE AND STAGING THE LAW 2.1 ‘You have seen the high shrieve’s warrant’: Legal Documents as Props in Star Chamber and Thomas of WoodstockLucy J. S. Clarke 2.2. ‘Libellous Articles’: Defamatory Manipulations of the Law in Early Modern EnglandClare Egan 2.3 ‘All is but a Play’? Performance and the Star ChamberIan Williams PART 3. LEGAL NARRATIVES AND LITERARY CHARACTERS: SHAPING SOCIETAL PERCEPTIONS OF JUSTICE, GENDER AND POWER 3.1 The Will and the Voice: Constructing Female Speaking Subjects in Late Medieval ScotlandEbba Strutzenbladh 3.2 ‘My bed shall be abused, my coffers ransacked, my reputation gnawed at!’: The Representation of Community Justice in The Merry Wives of WindsorDavid Johnson 3.3 Bel-imperia’s Literary Revenge and Counterlegal Justice Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish TragedyJayoon Byeon 3.4 The Law in Performance: Middleton’s Michelmas Term and Edward’s BoysAlison FindlayAFTERWORD: ‘LAW AS LITERATURE, LITERATURE AS LAW: WHAT’S IN A CONJUNCTION?’ Lorna Hutson