Law, Justice, and Society in the Medieval World

• For students and film buffs, it tears down misconceptions about the Middle Ages as being a lawless time.

Contributor: Esther Liberman Cuenca Esther Liberman Cuenca is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Houston- Victoria. She is the author of The Making of Urban Customary Law in Medieval and Reformation England. Her essays have appeared in Urban History, The Paris Review, Historical Reflections, Popular Music, and Continuity and Change. --- Contributor: M. Christina Bruno M. Christina Bruno is Associate Director of the Center for Medieval Studies at Fordham University in New York. She is a historian of late medieval Italy, focusing upon fifteenth-century Italian Observant Franciscans as legal and economic experts and practitioners. --- Contributor: Anthony Perron Anthony Perron is Associate Professor of History at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He is the author of three chapters in the Cambridge Histories series, including the Cam­bridge History of Medieval Canon Law. He has published articles in The Catholic Historical Review, The Journal of the Historical Society, and Historical Reflections, as well as in several edited volumes. --- Contributor: Maria Americo Maria Americo is Assistant Professor of History at Saint Peter’s University in New Jersey. --- Contributor: Daniel Armenti Daniel Armenti is Assistant Professor of Italian at High Point University in North Carolina. --- Contributor: Lucy C. Barnhouse Lucy C. Barnhouse is Assistant Professor of History at Arkansas State University, Jonesboro. --- Contributor: Christopher Bonura Christopher Bonura is Assistant Professor of History at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Maryland. --- Contributor: M. Christina Bruno M. Christina Bruno is Associate Director of the Center for Medieval Studies at Fordham University in New York. She is a historian of late medieval Italy, focusing upon fifteenth-century Italian Observant Franciscans as legal and economic experts and practitioners. --- Contributor: Julie K. Chamberlin Julie K. Chamberlin is Advanced Lecturer in English at Loyola University Chicago in Illinois. --- Contributor: Celia Chazelle Celia Chazelle is Professor of History at The College of New Jersey. --- Contributor: Rachel Ellen Clark Rachel Ellen Clark is Associate Professor of English at Wartburg College in Iowa. --- Contributor: Esther Liberman Cuenca Esther Liberman Cuenca is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Houston- Victoria. She is the author of The Making of Urban Customary Law in Medieval and Reformation England. Her essays have appeared in Urban History, The Paris Review, Historical Reflections, Popular Music, and Continuity and Change. --- Contributor: Casey Ireland Casey Ireland is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at the University of Richmond in Virginia. --- Contributor: Henry Ansgar Kelly Henry Ansgar Kelly is Distinguished Research Professor in the English Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. --- Contributor: Sarah C. Luginbill Sarah C. Luginbill is Visiting Assistant Professor of History and Humanities at Trinity University in Texas. --- Contributor: Coral Lumbley Coral Lumbley is Assistant Professor of English at Macalester College in Minnesota. --- Contributor: Sara McDougall Sara McDougall is Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the CUNY Graduate Center in New York. --- Contributor: Nathan Melson Nathan Melson is a History Lecturer at Hunter College in New York. --- Contributor: Nahir I. Otaño Gracia Nahir I. Otaño Gracia is Assistant Professor of English at the University of New Mexico. --- Contributor: Anthony Perron Anthony Perron is Associate Professor of History at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He is the author of three chapters in the Cambridge Histories series, including the Cam­bridge History of Medieval Canon Law. He has published articles in The Catholic Historical Review, The Journal of the Historical Society, and Historical Reflections, as well as in several edited volumes. --- Contributor: David M. Perry David M. Perry is Senior Academic Advisor in the History Department at the University of Minnesota. --- Contributor: Asif A. Siddiqi Asif A. Siddiqi is Professor of History at Fordham University in New York. --- Contributor: Eugene Smelyansky Eugene Smelyansky is Assistant Professor of History at Washington State University, Pullman. --- Contributor: Lorraine Kochanske Stock Lorraine Kochanske Stock is Professor of English at the University of Houston in Texas. --- Contributor: Spencer Strub Spencer Strub is Associate Research Scholar in the Humanities Council at Princeton University in New Jersey.

What a refreshing and lively collection of essays! Each one invites us to read film as an interpretive genre that, like traditional historiography, responds to shifts in our understanding of the Middle Ages. Analyzing medieval law and justice through the lens of global film inspires readers to see these fields anew and rethink the place of art in historical inquiry.---Kristina Richardson, Professor of History and Midde Eastern & South Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Virginia --- A wonderful resource for lovers of medieval history and cinema alike, this book offers analysis of the last century of film and its representation of legal practice and ideals of justice in medieval Europe. Each chapter offers incisive analysis of a particular film, coupled with a relevant primary source and questions for further thought. The result is an illuminating meditation on the relationship between medieval history and the various contexts and sensibilities that shape its modern portrayal. This book is not only for educators, medieval scholars, and students of history, it is also for all of those who watch a film and then wonder... Is that really how it was?---Ada Maria Kuskowski, Associate Professor at University of Pennsylvania and author of Vernacular Law: Writing and the Reinvention of Customary Law in Medieval France --- This groundbreaking collection is designed to support the teaching of medieval history through film. Its twenty highly accessible chapters concern a century’s worth of medievalist films (produced 1928 – 2021) set all over Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, addressing both the contemporary contexts of the films and the medieval milieux that the films reference. Appended to each chapter are relevant medieval sources and reading questions. Aimed at instructors utilizing medievalist films to teach both the realities of the period and the dynamics of cinematic representation to undergraduates, the collection doesn’t so much fill a gap as create a new paradigm.---Felice Lifshitz, author of Reading Gender: Studies in Medieval Manuscripts and Medievalist Films --- Law, Justice, and Society in the Medieval World is a sophisticated and accessible collection of essays that puts medieval history and medievalist films into productive conversation with each other. It will be an excellent resource for anyone who wants to better understand the historical contexts for medievalist films and as a model for how to take medievalist film seriously as part of the ongoing project of better understanding medieval history and its reception. The essays are engaging, the variety of topics is excellent and timely without feeling trendy, and the appendices provide the concrete and complex historical context we all need in order to avoid oversimplifying the medieval world.---Usha Vishnuvajjala, author of Feminist Medievalisms: Embodiment and Vulnerability in Literature and Film --- These diverse and penetrating essays on medieval films show us the Middle Ages as a collection of legal communities. Legal documents and narratives of justice vividly recreate the lives of everyday medieval people, focusing intimately on their courtroom trials, codes of conduct and religious practices. A powerful teaching tool for a variety of medieval courses.---William F. Woods, MV Hughes Professor of English, emeritus, Wichita State University, and author of Chaucerian Spaces: Spatial Poetics in Chaucer's Opening Tales --- This book is a lively and erudite collection of essays addressing the complex relationship between the Middle Ages and their cinematic representation since the beginning of the twentieth century. Certain of the films are well known, classics even; others have fallen into obscurity over the years, but all of them under the skillful scrutiny of the scholars represented in the collection testify powerfully to the benefits—and dangers—of mobilizing imagined medieval histories in the cultural and ideological controversies of modernity.---William Chester Jordan, Princeton University