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Copyright: © Authors 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14296/202109.9781912702909

Number of pages: 232

Number of illustrations: 9

Publication date: 8 October 2021

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Star Chamber Matters

An Early Modern Court and Its Records

K. J. Kesselring (Editor), Natalie Mears (Editor)

Series: IHR Conference Series

Published in association with: Institute of Historical Research

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An extraordinary court with late medieval roots in the activities of the king’s council, Star Chamber came into its own over the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, before being abolished in 1641 by members of parliament for what they deemed egregious abuses of royal power. Before its demise, the court heard a wide range of disputes in cases framed as fraud, libel, riot, and more. In so doing, it produced records of a sort that make its archive invaluable to many researchers today for insights into both the ordinary and extraordinary.

The chapters gathered here explore what we can learn about the history of an age through both the practices of its courts and the disputes of the people who came before them. With Star Chamber, we view a court that came of age in an era of social, legal, religious, and political transformation, and one that left an exceptional wealth of documentation that will repay further study.

Star Chamber Matters will surely serve as an introductory text for the increasing number of graduate students working on petitioning and justice in early modern England and beyond … For those more well versed in law courts and their records, the contributions are thought-provoking too: on the machinations behind litigation, popular knowledge of the law and its processes, and how historians approach truth and fiction in the archives

Journal of British Studies

1. Introduction: Star Chamber matters
K. J. Kesselring with Natalie Mears

2. The records of the court of Star Chamber at the National Archives and elsewhere
Daniel Gosling

3. Reading ravishment: gender and ‘will’ power in early Tudor Star Chamber, 1500–50
Deborah Youngs

4. Sir Edward Coke and the Star Chamber: the prosecution of rapes at Snargate, 1598–1602
Louis A. Knafla

5. ‘By reason of her sex and widowhood’: an early modern Welsh gentlewoman in the court of Star Chamber
Sadie Jarrett

6. Consent and coercion, force and fraud: marriages in Star Chamber
K. J. Kesselring

7. Labourers, legal aid and the limits of popular legalism in Star Chamber
Hillary Taylor

8. Jacobean Star Chamber records and the performance of provincial libel
Clare Egan

9. A marine insurance fraud in the Star Chamber
Emily Kadens

10. Star Chamber and the bullion trade, 1618–20
Simon Healy

11. Contemporary knowledge of the Star Chamber and the court’s abolition
Ian Williams

PDF: 9781912702909

EPUB: 9781912702916

Read Online: 9781911507451

Hardback: 9781912702893 / 232 pages / 245mm x 163mm

K. J. Kesselring (Editor)

Natalie Mears (Editor)

Journal of British Studies

Subject: Early Modern History, History

BISAC codes: HIS015030, HIS015040, LAW023000, LAW060000

Thema codes: LAZ, NHD

Keywords: Jacobean law, London history, Sir Edward Coke, Tudor Britain, Westminster, consent, courts, fraud, legal history, marine insurance, medieval judge, medieval libel, medieval marriage, medieval women, popular legalism, rape

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