
Love, Hate, and the Law in Tudor England reconstructs the life of Ralph Rishton, a member of the sixteenth-century Lancashire gentry who was a child bridegroom and a serial wife-discarder, who bribed church officials to obtain a forged annulment, defrauded a kinsman out of his inheritance, and adroitly manipulated his own and other people's land. The dozens of lawsuits in which the Rishtons were involved, in many different courts, elucidate one family's engagement with law in Tudor England: how they used and misused law, how it shaped their perceptions of rights and mutual obligations, and how it framed litigants' and witnesses' language. Drawing upon trial and estate records, the core of this study is the central narrative of Ralph Rishton's three wives, of litigiousness and violence, marriage and property, and the pursuit of equitable resolutions to disputes, along with countless smaller narratives that vividly capture a culture in its time and place. Alongside that central narrative, L. R. Poos uses the Rishton stories as a starting-point to analyse child marriage, the construction of memory, and the development of local historical identity through antiquarians and the Victorian and Edwardian local press, demonstrating how - from the time of the Rishtons into the twentieth century - historical narratives were continually reshaped and repurposed.
This study investigates how the legal maneuvers and personal disputes of Ralph Rishton, a sixteenth-century Lancashire gentleman, reflect the broader intersection of law, marriage, and property in Tudor society. L. R. Poos, a specialist in medieval and early modern social history, utilizes an extensive collection of trial and estate records to reconstruct the life of a serial litigant. By examining Rishton's manipulation of the legal system, the author argues that the law served as a primary framework for defining rights, obligations, and social identity during this period.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Historians and legal scholars frequently note the meticulous archival research that underpins this study of early modern litigation. Experts highlight the text as a significant contribution to understanding how local families navigated the complexities of the Tudor legal system.
Page Count:
512
Publication Date:
2022-01-01
Publisher:
OUP Oxford
ISBN-10:
019268860X
ISBN-13:
9780192688606
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