This seminar will study the law codes, legal theories, forensic methods, modes of litigation, judicial processes, criminal punishments, and legal cultures of the medieval West from the fifth century to the fifteenth. Topics to be discussed include the Late Roman Theodosian and Justinianic Codes, law in a lawless world after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the early English (or Anglo-Saxon) law codes, laws as songs, monastic Rules, Carolingian capitularies, the early medieval penitentials, feudal law, the Gregorian Reforms, secular and canon law, the rediscovery of Roman law, the rise of lawyer popes, the first university law schools in the twelfth century, the Fourth Lateran Council, Magna Carta, the early inquisitions into heretical depravity, courtroom testimony and confession, methods of interrogation and cross-examination, torture, life imprisonment, the development of English common law and the jury system, law as a secular profession, and the writing of laws and legal documents in vernacular languages (especially English and French) rather than Latin by the fifteenth century. The modern legal system of the United States (and the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia) was founded upon the legal history of this medieval millennium. The fundamental differences between Anglo-American and European law (and much of Central and South American law) also derives from these early centuries. Students will participate in weekly seminars reading and discussing primary and secondary sources in translation. Students are required to write a historiographic essay (4-6 pages) and a research essay (20-30 pages) on topics of their choosing.4 Units.
