The making of urban customary law in medieval and Reformation England / Esther Liberman Cuenca.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cuenca, Esther Liberman, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Customary law--England--History--To 1500.

Customary law.

Customary law--England--History--16th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 262 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, [2025]

Summary:

"This book examines the development of urban customary law from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries and argues that urban customs were crucial to the development of a distinct, bourgeois identity in medieval and Reformation England. Urban customary law regulated political officeholding, trade, property holding, and even moral behavior in English towns. This book explores the forms, genres, and content of urban customary law, which could appear in standalone and compilation custumals, as well as charters granted to towns by royal, seignorial, or ecclesiastical lords. This book makes two principal claims: First, customary law advanced the business interests of an urban oligarchy. These were urban (male) elites who drafted laws and obtained privileges to enhance their wealth and assert their political independence from local lords. They often made claims about the legitimacy of their privileges or laws by rooting them in history or some kind of ancestral past. These lawmakers also made considerable efforts to establish their identities as morally upright and even-handed patriarchs. Second, urban customary law lent particular meanings to the “common good” in towns, as it helped lawmakers articulate policies that cohered with their vision of an ideal civic community"-- Oxford Academic.

Drawing on a quantitative analysis of hundreds of printed and archival sources from 77 towns, 'The Making of Urban Customary Law in Medieval and Reformation England' is a cross-regional investigation into the history of urban customs since Mary Bateson's seminal, two-volume work 'Borough Customs (1904-1906)'.

Contents:

The making of urban charters and custumals

the authorship and transmission of urban custumals

customary time and urban memory

custom, community, and the common good

unenfranchisement : the gendered and classed boundaries of custom

oath-taking and the performance of urban customary law.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Online resource; title from home page (Oxford Academic, viewed November 27, 2025).

Other Format:

Print version: Cuenca, Esther Liberman. Making of urban customary law in medieval and Reformation England.

ISBN:

9780198916802

0198916809

9780198916789

0198916787

9780198916796

0198916795

OCLC:

1458314713

Publisher Number:

CIPO000146141

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license