One week! Just one week left to register for in-person attendance at Borders, Boundaries, and Barriers: Real and Imagined in the Middle Ages (20-21 April)! To mark the occasion, we have swanky new advertising posters (courtesy of Callie Jenman).
Registration buytickets.at/bordersbound...
16th Century list of accounts
Not strictly a legal record, this Star Chamber diet book nevertheless informs us how the Privy Council sitting judicially in the Star Chamber ran the court. Or, at least, tells us the vast amount they ate and drank on a particular day [TNA E 407/55]
Join The Inner Temple Debating Society as they celebrate 65 years of debating history & excellence on Fri, 24 April 🎂🎙️
Enjoy an evening of spirited conversation with members old & new, & reconnect with friends & debaters over drinks & dinner.
Festivities begin at 5pm! 🎉🥂
🎟️ Book: nrtm.pl/4riNLyd
Banner showing the cover image of 'Essays on the History of Equity' and the text: Investigates the history of equity in England between the 14th and 20th centuries.
Now available: 'Essays on the History of Equity' edited by @david-foster.bsky.social and Charles Mitchell
Charts the evolution of equity in English legal history from the medieval period to the present day ➡️ https://bit.ly/46a4BYr
#LegalHistory #EquityLaw
Sara Butler has built her research on a wonderful source: the inquest of hate and spite which are at housed at The National Archives in Kew, and which were critical for those falsely accused of homicide to get bail.
Guest post by @kaycrosby.bsky.social: 'Identifying Women Jurors and Institutionalising Women's Citizenship'
legalhistorymiscellany.com/2026/02/19/i...
Essays on the History of Equity – published today with Hart 🎉
www.bloomsbury.com/uk/essays-on...
My latest post is up! Enjoy.
Agnes de Frowyk: Widow, “Next Friend,” and Medieval Tiger Mom legalhistorymiscellany.com/2026/02/05/a...
It's publication day!
You can now buy Celebrating Women in Legal History here: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/celebrati...
History Society lecture titled The Early History of the English Bar by Professor Sir John Baker KC LLD FBA. The background is a medieval manuscript-style illustration showing robed legal figures seated above and a group of people debating around a green table below, with scrolls and papers scattered.
📚 The Early History of the English Bar
In this lecture, Professor Sir John Baker explores the origins of the Bar, the rise of Serjeants-at-Law, and the growing influence of the Inns of Court.
🗓 Monday 30 March, 6pm
👥 Open to the public
🎟️ Bookings: nrtm.pl/4kcP7c2
Its Miscellany Monday! Here's Butler, "Nobody Messes with Godfrey Giffard, Bishop of Worcester: Punishing the Violators of Sanctuary" (2021) legalhistorymiscellany.com/2021/11/26/n...
King's Bench Plea Roll.
Spent some time with this beauty today. 1650s King's Bench Plea Roll. TNA KB 27/1777
New post from Cassie Watson! Murder, Medicine, Money: A Met Police—Home Office Dispute, 1889-90 legalhistorymiscellany.com/2025/12/26/m...
The Society invites applications for the following three funding programmes, with deadlines 23 to 31 January 2026 bit.ly/3LbxDQb
> RHS Workshop Grants
> Applied History Fellowships, in association with @ihr.bsky.social
> Fellowships, for completion of a History PhD, also with the IHR
#Skystorians
📢 IMEMS and University College (Durham Castle) are delighted to invite applications for the 2026/27 Slater Fellowship, a three-month residential, senior fellowship at @durham.ac.uk during Epiphany Term 2027.
✉ Read more and apply here: www.durham.ac.uk/research/ins...
We're now welcoming abstracts for our 2026 conference, on the theme of 'Violence in the Medieval and Early Modern North'! The deadline is 15 January.
A page from the Dorney School punishment book showing various students, their offences, and their punishments
Thinking of the student Mary Young who 106 years ago today 'said "shan't" under [her] breath when told to repeat poor work'.
New post by @sarabutler.bsky.social: 'Bracton and the History of Emotions': legalhistorymiscellany.com/2025/11/30/i...
Cartoon from the early 1830s. It shows Lord Grey as Frankenstein, creating his Monster - a patched up Reform Bill. A bewigged judge is using a pair of bellows to keep the fire going. An alarmed looking John Bull is peering on through a window.
'It's alive!'
The Great Reform Act was passed in 1832, extending the franchise and reforming the electoral system (up to a point)
Published 14 years earlier, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein provides the inspiration for this cartoonist
More on Regency revolt and reform at warwick.ac.uk/services/lib...
Fresh on the catalogue, REQ 2/280, more Elizabethan Court of Requests goodness. Over 20,000 new item descriptions and counting for this oft-overlooked conciliar court. discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/r/C...
A person reaches for an item from a shelf of books.
We’re launching our new catalogue on Monday 8 December.
To keep our collections safe while we do this, access and ordering will be suspended for a week before launch and all requests for 8 December onwards must be made on the new system when it launches.
Find out more: bit.ly/CollectionSu...
In the lead up to the #WolfsonHistoryPrize winner announcement next month, we are shining a light on each of the shortlisted books.
This week, Sara Lodge's (@victoriandetective.bsky.social) 'The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective' takes the spotlight @yalebooks.bsky.social.
A person in a blue shirt with light orange trousers is holding a flail, which is two pieces of stick usually joined by a piece of leather. The tool is used for threshing grain. In this instance, the person is holding the flail over his head. He's about to hit the stalks of some plants, but the plants have been cropped out of the image so it appears as if the person is just about to swing a weapon. Reference: British Library, The Luttrell Psalter
Getting away with crime or getting justice?
Sometimes medieval criminal court records reveal instances in which localities and/or individuals took the punishment of crime into their own hands. The castration case of Tom, son of Leofwin, from the year 1202 is one such case. 🧵1/5
'Magna Carta and the North' - Durham Cathedral incredibly possess three issues of Magna Carta in its archives, including a 1216 issue. These issues feature in the excellent 'Magna Carta and the North exhibition' at Durham Cathedral.
www.durhamcathedral.co.uk/visit-us/thi...
#medievalsky
Want to know exactly how much tea was destroyed during the Boston Tea Party? Just check the bill the East India Company sent the British shortly afterwards, a copy of which is now at The National Archives [TNA CO 5/247] www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-...
Nothing makes an archivist happier than seeing the proper citation of sources in a social media post. Love to see it. And a top project, too. sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult...
Just two days to go until my talk at @nationalarchivesuk (7pm on 15 Oct) On display will be a treasure trove of Tudor documents, from Henry VIII’s will to the letter that sealed Mary, Queen of Scots’ fate www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/whats-on/eve... @thegozfather.bsky.social @hodderbooks.bsky.social
'A nationwide survey commissioned by Henry VIII on the property and wealth of 16th century England and Wales is to be made publicly accessible for the first time.
The survey, known as the Valor Ecclesiasticus, set out to discover the financial state of the Church'.
