Town Courts and Urban Society in Late Medieval England, 1250-1500, ed. Richard Goddard and Teresa Phipps
Town Courts and Urban Society in Late Medieval England, 1250-1500, ed. Richard Goddard and Teresa Phipps
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中世纪晚期英格兰的城镇法院和城市社会，1250-1500 年，编辑。
DOI：
10.1093/ehr/ceab124
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发表时间：
2021
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Brown S
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Brown S
对这一主题的研究已经超过了五年：一本关于城镇法院的论文集早就应该出版了。这本书开始不是一个，而是两个介绍性的章节，其中第一个看到编辑理查德戈达德和特蕾莎菲普斯奠定了他们的书的参数。正是在这里，我们被告知，本卷的模式是兹维·拉齐和理查德·史密斯的开创性的中世纪社会和庄园法院（1996年;修订前，cxiii [1998]，第100页）。713-14）。这些文章的结尾是玛丽安娜·科瓦莱斯基的两篇文章，她提供了第二篇介绍，这是对城镇法院的全面概述，涵盖了它们的历史、业务和程序。她还提供了一个有价值的附录--一个有注释的镇法院记录列表，可以在网上或印刷品中找到。仅科瓦列斯基的贡献就使本卷不可或缺。一个绊脚石是“定义什么是“自治市法院””（第4页）。这个问题源于确定一个城镇的困难，无论是某些权利和特权，城墙，人口还是职业结构，这是人口统计学家再熟悉不过的争论。城市法律的论坛有多种类型，从市场或公平法庭到LEET和死因裁判法庭，这一事实使情况更加复杂。Kowaleski提供了以下定义：“法律认可的会议，包括提出犯罪和/或个人申诉，并在被承认为城市社区代表的官员的（部分或完全）授权下举行”（第18页）。由于这一宽泛的定义，本书包罗万象，允许对城市法院的各种方式做出贡献--这种方法并不适合于一个清晰的整体结构。此外，由于这些法院及其记录“固有的地方性质”和“缺乏统一性”（第4页），甚至很难说撰稿人出于不同目的使用了一个共同的来源。尽管如此，最终产品是十篇丰富而翔实的文章，它们本身都同样迷人。这些贡献展示了城镇法院在实践中如何运作，但需要说明的是，它们的地方性质意味着这些案例研究不一定具有代表性。考虑到这一点，不同城镇之间的更多比较是受欢迎的。然而，这是一项艰巨的任务，因为研究的出发点是，市镇法院"更多地是作为一个城镇历史的一部分进行研究，而不是在分析和比较的框架内进行研究“（第23页）。将比较方法应用于城市法院记录的力量在科瓦莱斯基的介绍中真正体现出来，她的附录支持了进一步比较的潜力。许多文章成功地突出了一个城镇或地区的司法管辖区的拼凑性质。饰Jane W.劳顿给了一个辉煌的概述了一些法院在切斯特。这篇文章是她最后一次出版，是一个中世纪城镇内部比较工作的光辉典范。克里斯托弗·戴尔在这一章中引用了来自22个城镇的证据，证明法院“在征得同意的情况下工作”（第114页）。萨曼莎·萨圭证明了诺维奇的leet法院试图确保人们使用这个法院，而不是替代品。这部文集并不回避解决一些方法论问题：戴尔警告说，“如果我们把注意力集中在市民参加的法庭上的证据上，我们就有可能通过上帝文献的狭隘棱镜来审视城市生活”（第116页）。杰里米戈德堡提供了一些密切的阅读，以突出中世纪法院名册的虚构性质。
BOOK REVIEWS study of the subject has been much longer than five years: a collection of essays on town courts is long overdue. The book opens with not one but two introductory chapters, the first of which sees editors Richard Goddard and Teresa Phipps lay out the parameters of their book. It is here that we are told that the model for this volume was Zvi Razi and Richard Smith’s seminal Medieval Society and the Manor Court (1996; rev. ante, cxiii [1998], pp. 713–14). The essays are bookended by two contributions from Maryanne Kowaleski, who provides the second introduction, which is a comprehensive overview of town courts, covering their history, business and procedure. She also provides a valuable appendix—an annotated list of the town court records available online or in print. Kowaleski’s contributions alone render the present volume indispensable.A stumbling block comes in the form of ‘defining what a “borough court” actually is’(p. 4). The problem stems from the difficulties in identifying a town—whether this be certain rights and privileges, walls, population or occupational structure—a debate all too familiar to demographers. This is compounded by the fact that there are many types of urban legal forums, from market or fair courts through to leet and coroners’ courts. Kowaleski provides the following definition:‘legally-sanctioned meetings that included presentments of offences and/or personal pleas and were run under the authority (partial or complete) of officials acknowledged as representatives of an urban community’(p. 18). Owing to this broad definition, the book is all-encompassing, allowing contributions on all manner of urban courts—an approach which does not lend itself to a clear overall structure. Furthermore, due to the ‘inherent local nature’and ‘lack of uniformity’of these courts and their records (p. 4) it is difficult even to state that the contributors are using a shared source for diverse purposes. Nevertheless, the end product is ten rich and informative essays which are all equally fascinating in their own right. The contributions demonstrate how town courts functioned in practice, with the caveat that their local nature means that these case-studies are not necessarily representative. With this in mind, more comparison between different towns would have been welcome. This is a tall order, however, given that the starting point was that borough courts ‘have more often been studied as part of one town’s history than within an analytic and comparative framework’(p. 23). The strength of applying a comparative approach to urban court records really comes through in Kowaleski’s introduction, and the potential for further comparison is supported by her appendix. A number of essays successfully highlight the patchwork nature of jurisdictions in one town or area. The late Jane W. Laughton gives a brilliant overview of a number of courts in Chester. This essay, which was her final publication, is a shining example of comparative work inside one medieval town. Christopher Dyer’s chapter draws on evidence from twenty-two towns to show that courts ‘worked with an element of consent’(p. 114). Samantha Sagui demonstrates that Norwich’s leet court tried to ensure that people used this court rather than alternatives. The collection does not shy away from addressing some of the methodological problems: Dyer cautions that ‘if we focus our attention on the evidence of the courts attended by townspeople, we are in danger of examining urban life through the narrow prism of the lord’s documents’(p. 116). Jeremy Goldberg provides some close readings to highlight the fictive nature of medieval court rolls.