Book Review

This collection of ten papers originally given at the 1994 conference on Recent Research on Fifteenth-Century History contains four articles of particular interest to legal historians.	1
The most important is Penny Tucker's on London's courts during the reign of Edward IV. Although the surviving records are very scant, this article conducts a remarkably convincing quantitative analysis of the activities of the three principal London courts: sheriffs' court, court of hustings, and mayor's court. Of these, the sheriffs' court heard the most cases, probably between one thousand and three thousand per year, of which over half were debt actions and a third were trespass. The court of hustings, which specialized in land cases, heard many fewer cases, usually less than ten per year, of which most by the late fifteenth century were fictitious writ-of-right actions to record mortgages and other transactions. In addition, several hundred cases, mostly debt actions, were initiated in the mayor's court, although only about ten percent reached judgment. Tucker then goes on to compute the number of London cases heard in the Westminster courts (several hundred per year and not rising, except in chancery) and persuasively concludes that "London's governors appear to have been successful in their attempts to protect its system of law."	2
Two of the papers focus on Cheshire. David Tilsley's article explores arbitration of gentry disputes in Bucklow hundred. His principal source is forty-five enrolled arbitration recognizances from the period 1400 to 1465. Unfortunately, the recognizances provide almost no information about the cause of the disputes or their eventual resolution. They do show, however, that enrolled arbitration recognizances were used almost exclusively by a few leading families, that most arbitrators were Cheshire officials, and that the parties' choices of sureties show little evidence of factionalism. Tilsley also researched family muniment collections, which occasionally provide some additional information on arbitration, including most importantly the terms of awards. Interestingly, the awards sometimes attempted to restore the relationship between the parties. One such award, for example, decreed that the disputants be "gode fryndes."	3
Tim Thornton examines the equity jurisdiction exercised by the earl's councillors sitting in the exchequer at Chester. Starting in the late fifteenth century, Thornton finds bills addressed to the "Justice and other of the kynges counsell at Chestre" praying relief, like contemporary Westminster Chancery bills, "in way of charite." By the 1520s, the Chester exchequer was issuing writs of subpoena and taking depositions, again like the Westminster Chancery. In other ways not fully explored by Thornton, however, the Chester equity court seems to have been different from the one sitting at Westminster. Whereas at Westminster, the chancellor decided cases himself, at Chester, the justice, chamberlain, and others sat together (at least in the late fifteenth century), which makes the court resemble Star Chamber, a court similarly composed of several men with important, nonjudicial responsibilities. The subject matter of the Chester equity court also seems to have been different. Although Thornton does not provide a detailed breakdown of the types of cases heard, none he discusses deals with the trust or contract issues that made the Westminster Chancery so important. Instead, the Chester equity court seems to have dealt with an odd miscellany of cases, including a claim of wrongful entry onto land, prosecution of a fugitive for selling stolen goods, and suit against eleven people for cutting down trees. The paper concludes by showing that very few Chester men brought cases in the Westminster Chancery.	4
Carrie Smith explores the reliability of medieval coroners' rolls. She acknowledges that these rolls, like all medieval records, are far from perfect. Very few survive. Those that do survive suffer from deliberate and negligent omissions. Since coroners are likely to have been most negligent in performing their inquests during the winter months, when travel was more difficult, quantitative seasonal analyses, like those done by Barbara Hanawalt, are likely to be unreliable. In addition, those attending the inquests had significant motives to mislead the coroner. To prevent forfeiture, suicides could be represented as accidental deaths or as homicides by "unknown strangers." Child abuse or infanticide could be reported as accidental death to absolve the parents of liability. And homicides of a culpable nature could be portrayed as self-defense. Smith's main contribution is to set forth reasons to believe that the coroners' rolls are more reliable than sometimes believed. On the issue of dates, for example, she shows that the Wiltshire rolls she examined document such delays between death and inquest that it is hard to discern any evidence of tampering to make the coroner appear more prompt.	5
These four papers, of course, constitute less than half of this book. Others cover a wide range of topics, from the Chester mystery plays to the politics of the Order of the Garter. This reviewer found particularly interesting Deborah Marsh's description of a lesser Cheshire gentleman's efforts to buttress his land claims though research in his more powerful neighbors' archives and Caroline Barron's exploration of the few shards of evidence relating to the education and apprenticeship of fifteenth-century London girls.	6
These four papers, of course, constitute less than half of this book. Others cover a wide range of topics, from the Chester mystery plays to the politics of the Order of the Garter. This reviewer found particularly interesting Deborah Marsh's description of a lesser Cheshire gentleman's efforts to buttress his land claims though research in his more powerful neighbors' archives and Caroline Barron's exploration of the few shards of evidence relating to the education and apprenticeship of fifteenth-century London girls.	7
Daniel Klerman University of Southern California Law School

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