(Complex as one’s feelings this year may be of course.)

And it will be especially appropriate this year to celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States in the study of “the free system of English laws”.

It’s always hard to experience so much excitement and delight and then wait two whole years for the next occasion.

People could also come to the British Legal History Conference in Nottingham, 1-4 July 2026! Registration is open until 20 April…

On what I pray may be a more helpful note—today I did note this book on Abe today, inscribed by a ‘Miss Mary Parker of Retford’ in 1738! www.abebooks.com/Select-Trial...

I will ask around here about this subject in any case!

Interestingly, one of the non-strictly-legal books that I remember having a female provenance was also a Locke book. It was the 1764 edition of the Two Treatises; the name inscribed was Lucy Finch, Lacy French, or something similar.

📣First 2026 Issue of the HJ!

Featuring articles from historians including @adambforsyth.bsky.social, @adam-q.bsky.social, @joelherman.bsky.social, @davidandress.bsky.social, @feichen-uol.bsky.social and more!

👉Read open access here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

🗃️📜📘

Frustratingly, I haven’t been able to find either of the volumes of which I was thinking, even after looking through (I think) the contents of nearly the whole room!

I will let you know if I do find them, though. Terribly sorry—I kept looking and looking, to no avail.

A photograph of a Tetrapanax papyrifer, otherwise known as a 'pith paper plant', in a plant pot.

Two people looking at the bark from the Tetrapanax papyrifer, otherwise known as a 'pith paper plant'.

A photo of the bark from the Tetrapanax papyrifer, otherwise known as a 'pith paper plant'.

New at the Dye Garden: a Tetrapanax papyrifer, known as a 'pith paper plant' 🌿

Once the stems are mature enough, the inner pith can be used to make paper! Thank you to Harry Metcalf, Paper Conservator at the @fitzmuseum.bsky.social, for the donation.

King. Our Rage is turn'd to Fear: What ails the Queen? Aldi. A sudden Diarrhœa's rapid Force So stimulates the Peristaltic Motion, That the by far out-does her late Out-doing, And all conclude her Royal Life in Danger. King. Bid the Physicians of the World assemble In Consultation, solemn and sedate: More to corroborate their sage Resolves, Call from their Graves the learned Men of Old: Galen, Hippocrates, and Paracelsus; Doctors, Apothecaries, Surgeons, Chymists, All! all! attend; and see they bring their Med'cines.

The contents are rather as one would expect them to be.

Book cover saying: CHRONONHOTONTHOLOGOS The most TRAGICAL tragedy, that ever was TRAGEDIZED by any Company of TRAGEDIANS By the Author of SALLY IN OUR ALLEY Now reprinted for the private edification and delight of the SPENSER Society at their Nineteenth Dinner at Pembroke-hall in Cambridge on 24 January 1928

There was an extremely limited modern printing of this (in only 25 copies):

Yes, it was shut down in 2007. A shame—one would think that it were important for us Americans to understand the historical context from which our republic emerged…

Perhaps “Reconstitution”?

Revolution / Reconstruction / Reconstitution

e.g. the Yale Center for Parliamentary History would be a useful institution to have right now. too bad!

We could learn even more if the discipline of early modern British history (especially in its legal and constitutional aspect) hadn’t been decimated in the United States :(

History Society lecture titled The Early History of the English Bar by Professor Sir John Baker KC LLD FBA. The background is a medieval manuscript-style illustration showing robed legal figures seated above and a group of people debating around a green table below, with scrolls and papers scattered.

📜 Today is the last chance to get your ticket for our fascinating talk: 'The Early History of the English Bar'

Join us on 30 March for our first History Society Lecture of the year as Professor Sir John Baker KC explores the rise of the Inns of Court.

🔓 Open to the public
🕛 Book: nrtm.pl/4aldFfn

"Abigail Kimball's Law Book...1785" - Karin Wulf Born in 1776, Abigail Kimball of Johnston Rhode Island inscribed the inside cover of English Liberties, or the Free-born Subject’s Inheritance when she was just 9 years old, noting that she was “A Stu...

A research query for the #herbook community. I'm working on a short piece about a law book with a girl's signature ("her book!") -- an extension of a blog post.

Anyone w other examples of early modern woman's provenance on law books? Esp British/ British American?

karinwulf.com/tidbits/abig...

I think there might be some here in the legal history room at the Faculty of Law here in Cambridge (England)! I can check the volumes I seem to remember in the GMT afternoon.

History is littered with empires undone by profligate public expenditures on learning. Oh wait.

Not always the angle that has interested people most, but Legge was also and perhaps primarily an important and extremely learned civil & ecclesiastical lawyer (in addition to being a playwright and college master!)

The first REQ 2 (Court of Requests proceedings) bundles for James I (which also include some Charles I proceedings) are now searchable on The National Archives online catalogue. As ever, loads of interesting stuff in there. discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/r/C...

History Society lecture titled The Early History of the English Bar by Professor Sir John Baker KC LLD FBA. The background is a medieval manuscript-style illustration showing robed legal figures seated above and a group of people debating around a green table below, with scrolls and papers scattered.

📚 The Early History of the English Bar

In this lecture, Professor Sir John Baker explores the origins of the Bar, the rise of Serjeants-at-Law, and the growing influence of the Inns of Court.

🗓 Monday 30 March, 6pm
👥 Open to the public
🎟️ Bookings: nrtm.pl/4kcP7c2

Outside the Level 2 Reading Room in @bodleian.ox.ac.uk there is a wellbeing display. Here are some it's little zines that genuinely made me smile.

It's hardly an original observation, but it really is astonishing how accomplished and penetrating this book is over such a wide range of themes

A blithely reductive portrait of the complex experiences and beliefs of many individual people?

Yes! But we are having fun.

‘Oh no! The pursuivant has alerted the town bailiffs to your Marian icons, and he is coming to arrest you with a precept of attachment!

Attempt escape? (This will risk contumacy; but if successful, +5 to your Recusancy Creds.) Y/N?’

‘Oh no! The defendant’s proctor has filed exceptions against your witnesses!’

‘But his Latin is faulty—complain to Diocesan Chancellor?

(This will cost you 4 charisma.) Yes/No?’

‘Oh no! Your suit in the diocesan consistory has failed!’

‘REGISTRAR: Pay my Reverend Lord’s tabellion or be made excommunicate!’

‘Seek writ of prohibition? Yes or No?’

There are more possibilities for video games about early modern English ecclesiastical / other litigation than have hitherto been acknowledged.

I don’t talk about it here, but in addition to the considerations about arrest, there is also another story about powers of search that I intend to write at some point