The Social Life of the Law : Bureaucracy, Anxieties, and Ordinary Political Culture in the Insular Plantagenet World (c.1200-c.1400)

My research focuses on how bureaucratic authors used writing as a means of engaging with and articulating anxieties about their precarious social positions alongside broader anxieties about legitimacy within the political culture of the insular Plantagenet World between 1200 and 1400. Working with material in Latin, Old French, Middle Welsh, Middle English, Old Scots, and Medieval Irish it draws together less studied texts and ephemeral documents to provide a new perspective on the politics of law and society by placing the authors and users of the various legal systems of the British Isles in their ordinary political contexts.