University of London, Birkbeck College
Graduate Student, Department of History, Classics & Archaeology
Thesis Title: Legal Space in Late Medieval England
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Professor John Arnold
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About
I'm interested in the relationship between the informal categories of law/order conceived by peasants and townsmen and their notions of their immediate spatial environment. How did they subdivide space, and according to what criteria? What language did they use to describe these divisions? What were the consequences of this discourse?
My preliminary contention is that the ordering of space can be seen as an epistemological framework that conditioned (rather than necessarily structured) other discourses of subaltern politics: for example, the idea of 'commonness' as a category transcending ideas of morality (e.g. "common women"), high politics ("the commons"), and space ("common tavern").
I will be using both printed and manuscript legal records from as many areas and different jurisdictions as possible, across the period 1450-1530, including manorial, ecclesiastical, common law, equity, and franchisal courts.
