Law, Justice, and Society in the Medieval World

This coursebook is the first full-length study of cinematic “legal medievalism,” or the modern interpretation of medieval law in film and popular culture

For more than a century, filmmakers have used the “Middle Ages” to produce popular entertainment and comment on contemporary issues. Each of the twenty chapters in Law, Justice, and Society in the Medieval World represents an original contribution to our understanding of how medieval regulations, laws, and customs have been depicted in film. It offers a window into the “rules” of medieval society through the lens of popular culture.

This book includes analyses of recent and older films, avant-garde as well as popular cinema. Films discussed in this book include Braveheart (1995), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), The Last Duel (2021), The Green Knight (2021), The Little Hours (2017), and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), among others.

Each chapter explores the contemporary context of the film in question, the medieval literary or historical milieu the film references, and the lessons the film can teach us about the medieval world. Attached to each chapter is an appendix of medieval documentary sources and reading questions to prompt critical reflection.

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.Bruno M. Christina :

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.Perron Anthony :

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.Americo Maria :

Maria Americo is Assistant Professor of History at Saint Peter’s University in New Jersey.Armenti Daniel :

Daniel Armenti is Assistant Professor of Italian at High Point University in North Carolina.Barnhouse Lucy C. :

Lucy C. Barnhouse is Assistant Professor of History at Arkansas State University, Jonesboro.Bonura Christopher :

Christopher Bonura is Assistant Professor of History at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Maryland.Bruno M. Christina :

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.Chamberlin Julie K. :

Julie K. Chamberlin is Advanced Lecturer in English at Loyola University Chicago in Illinois.Chazelle Celia :

Celia Chazelle is Professor of History at The College of New Jersey.Clark Rachel Ellen :

Rachel Ellen Clark is Associate Professor of English at Wartburg College in Iowa.Cuenca Esther Liberman :

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.Ireland Casey :

Casey Ireland is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at the University of Richmond in Virginia.Kelly Henry Ansgar :

Henry Ansgar Kelly is Distinguished Research Professor in the English Department at the University of California, Los Angeles.Luginbill Sarah C. :

Sarah C. Luginbill is Visiting Assistant Professor of History and Humanities at Trinity University in Texas.Lumbley Coral :

Coral Lumbley is Assistant Professor of English at Macalester College in Minnesota.McDougall Sara :

Sara McDougall is Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the CUNY Graduate Center in New York.Melson Nathan :

Nathan Melson is a History Lecturer at Hunter College in New York.Otaño Gracia Nahir I. :

Nahir I. Otaño Gracia is Assistant Professor of English at the University of New Mexico.Perron Anthony :

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.Perry David M. :

David M. Perry is Senior Academic Advisor in the History Department at the University of Minnesota.Siddiqi Asif A. :

Asif A. Siddiqi is Professor of History at Fordham University in New York.Smelyansky Eugene :

Eugene Smelyansky is Assistant Professor of History at Washington State University, Pullman.Stock Lorraine Kochanske :

Lorraine Kochanske Stock is Professor of English at the University of Houston in Texas.Strub Spencer :

Spencer Strub is Associate Research Scholar in the Humanities Council at Princeton University in New Jersey.Esther Liberman Cuenca (Edited By)
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.

M. Christina Bruno (Edited By)
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.

Anthony Perron (Edited By)
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.

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