This is the first detailed analysis of English barristers and the Inns of Court in the period 1680-1730. The four Inns of Court have constituted the principal institutional home of common lawyers since medieval times, and by the early modern period were regarded as a `third university'. Barristers were the pre-eminent professional men of Augustan England. In parliament, they played a disproportionate role in the business of the Commons. David Lemmings traces the history of the Inns and the barristers during an important period of transition. He shows how the Inns declined from their former splendour during the later seventeenth century until, by the reign of George II, they were principally dormitories and offices for a mass of non-lawyers, and comfortable dining clubs for a minority of their members. At the same time, the number of practising barristers fell. Together these changes represented an invigorating purge which re-structured the legal profession. The processes of professionalization among different occupational groups are of increasing historical interest. Gentlemen and Barristers is an original and thorough analysis of a major profession at a significant stage of its development. Dr Lemmings breaks new ground in his use of contemporary material, including the archives of the Inns of Court. His eleven appendices, detailing the business and finances of the barristers, will prove an invaluable reference tool. The history of the Inns and the barristers necessarily touches upon many aspects of life in this period, including commerce, high politics, and elite culture. This story offers a fresh perspective on England under the last Stuarts and first Hanoverians.

This book explores ways in which passions came to be conceived, performed and authenticated in the eighteenth-century marketplace of print. It considers satire and sympathy in various environments, ranging from popular novels and journalism, through philosophical studies of the Scottish Enlightenment, to last words, aesthetics, and plastic surgery.

This book applies three overlapping bodies of work to generate fresh approaches to the study of criminal justice in England and Ireland between 1660 and 1850. First, crime and justice are interpreted as elements of the "public sphere" of opinion about government. Second, "performativity" and speech act theory are considered in the context of the Anglo-Irish criminal trial, which was transformed over the course of this period from an unmediated exchange between victim and accused to a fully lawyerized performance. Thirdly, the authors apply recent scholarship on the history of emotions, particularly relating to the constitution of "emotional communities" and changes in "emotional regimes".

This edited collection takes a critical perspective on Norbert Elias's theory of the "civilizing process," through historical essays and contemporary analysis from sociologists and cultural theorists. It focuses on changes in emotional regimes or styles and considers the intersection of emotions and social change, historically and contemporaneously. The book is set in the context of increasing interest among humanities and social science scholars in reconsidering the significance of emotion and affect in society, and the development of empirical research and theorizing around these subjects. Some have labeled this interest as an "affective turn" or a "turn to affect," which suggests a profound and wide-ranging reshaping of disciplines. Building upon complex theoretical models of emotions and social change, the chapters exemplify this shift in analysis of emotions and affect, and suggest different approaches to investigation which may help to shape the direction of sociological and historical thinking and research.

This edited collection takes a critical perspective on Norbert Elias's theory of the "civilizing process," through historical essays and contemporary analysis from sociologists and cultural theorists. It focuses on changes in emotional regimes or styles and considers the intersection of emotions and social change, historically and contemporaneously. The book is set in the context of increasing interest among humanities and social science scholars in reconsidering the significance of emotion and affect in society, and the development of empirical research and theorizing around these subjects. Some have labeled this interest as an "affective turn" or a "turn to affect," which suggests a profound and wide-ranging reshaping of disciplines. Building upon complex theoretical models of emotions and social change, the chapters exemplify this shift in analysis of emotions and affect, and suggest different approaches to investigation which may help to shape the direction of sociological and historical thinking and research.

Modern criminal courts are characteristically the domain of lawyers, with trials conducted in an environment of formality and solemnity, where facts are found and legal rules are impartially applied to administer justice. Recent historical scholarship has shown that in England lawyers only began to appear in ordinary criminal trials during the eighteenth century, however, and earlier trials often took place in an atmosphere of noise and disorder, where the behaviour of the crowd - significant body language, meaningful looks, and audible comment - could influence decisively the decisions of jurors and judges. This collection of essays considers this transition from early scenes of popular participation to the much more orderly and professional legal proceedings typical of the nineteenth century, and links this with another important shift, the mushroom growth of popular news and comment about trials and punishments which occurred from the later seventeenth century. It hypothesizes that the popular participation which had been a feature of courtroom proceedings before the mid-eighteenth century was not stifled by 'lawyerization', but rather partly relocated to the 'public sphere' of the press, partly because of some changes connected with the work of the lawyers. Ranging from the early 1700s to the mid-nineteenth century, and taking account of criminal justice proceedings in Scotland, as well as England, the essays consider whether pamphlets, newspapers, ballads and crime fiction provided material for critical perceptions of criminal justice proceedings, or alternatively helped to convey the official 'majesty' intended to legitimize the law. In so doing the volume opens up fascinating vistas upon the cultural history of Britain's legal system over the 'long eighteenth century'.

This book applies three overlapping bodies of work to generate fresh approaches to the study of criminal justice in England and Ireland between 1660 and 1850. First, crime and justice are interpreted as elements of the "public sphere" of opinion about government. Second, "performativity" and speech act theory are considered in the context of the Anglo-Irish criminal trial, which was transformed over the course of this period from an unmediated exchange between victim and accused to a fully lawyerized performance. Thirdly, the authors apply recent scholarship on the history of emotions, particularly relating to the constitution of "emotional communities" and changes in "emotional regimes".

Oxford's variorum edition of William Blackstone's seminal treatise on the common law of England and Wales offers the definitive account of the Commentaries' development in a modern format. For the first time it is possible to trace the evolution of English law and Blackstone's thought through the eight editions of Blackstone's lifetime, and the authorial corrections of the posthumous ninth edition. Introductions by the general editor and the volume editors set the Commentaries in their historical context, examining Blackstone's distinctive view of the common law, and editorial notes throughout the four volumes assist the modern reader in understanding this key text in the Anglo-American common law tradition. Book I: Of the Rights of Persons covers the key topics of constitutional and public law. Blackstone's inaugural lecture 'On the Study of the Law' introduces a series of general essays on the nature of law, including a chapter on 'The Absolute Rights of Individuals' . This is followed by an extended account of England's political constitution. The various categories of people or subjects are then surveyed, with special attention to the rights and obligations of masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children, and lastly 'artificial persons', or corporations. In addition to David Lemmings' introduction to the volume, Book I includes an introduction from the General Editor Wilfrid Prest.

The story of the English barristers and the culture of common law between 1690 and 1820 is a complex one. In Professors of the Law David Lemmings provides a wealth of detail about barristers' numbers, education, working habits, reputation, and self-image, and compares them with colonial American lawyers. The broad-ranging conclusion suggests that the bar ultimately failed English society and contributed to the marginalization of the common law.

New analysis and interpretation of law and legal institutions in the "long eighteenth century". Law and legal institutions were of huge importance in the governance of Georgian society: legislation expanded the province of administrative authority out of all proportion, while the reach of the common law and its communal traditions of governance diminished, at least outside British North America. But what did the rule of law mean to eighteenth-century people, and how did it connect with changing experiences of law in all their bewildering complexity?This question has received much recent critical attention, but despite widespread agreement about Law's significance as a key to unlock so much which was central to contemporary life, as a whole previous scholarship has only offered a fragmented picture of the Laws in their social meanings and actions. Through a broader-brush approach, The British and their Laws in the Eighteenth Century contributes fresh analyses of law in England andBritish settler colonies, c. 1680-1830; its expert contributors consider among other matters the issues of participation, central-local relations, and the maintenance of common law traditions in the context of increasing legislative interventions and grants of statutory administrative powers. Contributors: SIMON DEVEREAUX, MICHAEL LOBBAN, DOUGLAS HAY, JOANNA INNES, WILFRED PREST, C.W. BROOKS, RANDALL MCGOWEN, DAVID THOMAS KONIG, BRUCE KERCHER