BOOK: Laura FLANNIGAN, Royal Justice and the Making of the Tudor Commonwealth, 1485–1547 [Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025), ISBN 9781009371353

 

(image source: Cambridge University Press)

On the book:

The dawn of the Tudor regime is one of most recognisable periods of English history. Yet the focus on its monarchs' private lives and ministers' constitutional reforms creates the impression that this age's major developments were isolated to halls of power, far removed from the wider populace. This book presents a more holistic vision of politics and society in late medieval and early modern England. Delving into the rich but little-studied archive of the royal Court of Requests, it reconstructs collaborations between sovereigns and subjects on the formulation of an important governmental ideal: justice. Examining the institutional and social dimensions of this point of contact, this study places ordinary people, their knowledge and demands at the heart of a judicial revolution unfolding within the governments of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Yet it also demonstrates that directing extraordinary royal justice into ordinary procedures created as many problems as it solved. 

Table of contents:

Introduction. Part I. The New Justice System: Chapter 1. The principle and problem of justice Chapter 2. Conciliar justice at centre and periphery Chapter 3. 'Travailing between the prince and petitioners': the court of requests Part II. Seeking and Requesting Justice: Chapter 4. Geography and demography Chapter 5. Disputes and dispute-resolution Chapter 6. 'Your poor orator': petitioning the king Part III. Delivering and Contesting Justice: Chapter 7. Before the king's honourable council Chapter 8. Answers and arguments Chapter 9. 'A final peax': passing judgment Conclusion. Justice and the Tudor Commonwealth.

On the author:

Laura Flannigan is a researcher at the University of Oxford. She has published several articles in Law and History Review and Historical Research, and was awarded the Sir John Neale Essay Prize in 2020. Her volume on the Court of Requests archive is forthcoming (List and Index Society, 2023).

 Read more here: DOI 10.1017/9781009371346.