This issue begins with Laura Flannigan's study of the early-Tudor government's “Court of Requests,” which was an early equity or conscience court that is far lesser known than the Courts of Star Chamber and Chancery. Flannigan explores the parties who filed suit there and argues that men from the lower strata of society used vague descriptions of their poverty so as to maximize their rhetorical appeal. Flannigan seeks to inform discussions of methods of understanding the demography of early modern central courts, the litigation strategies used in those courts, and the theory and practice of royal justice for the poor.
Ian Williams’ article examines the impact of the printing press on legal knowledge in early modern England. Before the 1620s the wider public had limited access to legal texts in England. But the printing press facilitated wider distribution of the common law. Williams focuses on everyday cases to identify the legal profession's reduced control over the transmission of legal knowledge.
We then move to nineteenth-century South Asia where Zak Leonard and Priyasha Saksena have uncovered stories of the complicated relationship between South Asian colonial “princely states” and British colonial rulers. Leonard explains how the East India Company began confiscating and annexing princely states due to the purported misrule or default of the states’ blood heirs. Leonard discusses several cases where reformist opposition used international law to protect against colonial depredations. Saksena's article cites different examples to identify competing concepts of sovereignty—unitary and divisible—that arose around contests over the princely states in the late nineteenth century.
Finally, Rabiat Akande's article turns to colonial Northern Nigeria, where the sacred and secular were deeply intertwined in the governing legal system. Akande discovers the existence of a British Colonial Islamic Law in Northern Nigeria through the expansion of the doctrine of siyasa. Akande is chiefly interested in the people who devised this system and how it fit within the broader colonial project of governing religious difference.
The Docket, our digital imprint, continues to publish features, book reviews, and other content at lawandhistoryreview.org. Our second Docket issue of 2020 features an expanded discussion of the forum on age of consent laws that appeared in Law and History Review 38.1. Readers interested in contributing to The Docket will find contact information on the website.
Readers can keep track of the latest goings on at Law and History Review through our twitter account @history_law. The American Society for Legal History's redesigned website can be accessed at https://aslh.net, for all the Society's latest announcements and news. The Society's twitter account is @ASLHtweets.
