Custom in context : Medieval and Early Modern Scotland and England

Studying custom and its context gives unique insights into relations of property, production and law in a society. The first part of the article discusses meaning in Scotland, focusing on ‘custom as normative practice, custom as unwritten law, and custom in opposition to law’. The second seeks to demonstrate (using evidence focusing principally on landholding) that custom as legal currency was more restricted for Scots than English. The third sets out the implications for continuity of landholding and for agrarian change in the Highlands of Scotland, an area where custom might be thought strong. The fourth deals with the differential legal development of Scotland and England between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries and its effects on social and tenurial relationships. A final section suggests why custom mattered more as a resource to the English, the domains in which it was important to Scots and the implications for understanding the comparative development of the two societies since the Middle Ages.PostprintPeer reviewe

What did the Royal Almoner do in Britain and Ireland, c.1450-1700?

The late medieval and early modern royal almoner for England and Wales was an important figure, a senior cleric best documented as a court preacher who was the crown’s religious and moral face; prominent holders included Wolsey and Lancelot Andrewes. The article begins by looking at the almoner’s appointment and functions at court, but it is mostly devoted to his interactions with Tudor and Stuart society at large. Indeed he had many public roles that are poorly understood. These included arbitrating, mediating, and directing the distribution of the forfeited goods of suicides found felo de se by coroners’ inquests, granted to successive almoners by the crown. The article looks at the almoner’s operations both in courts such as Star Chamber and outside them. It argues that he sought to create or repair communal bonds when survivors of suicide denied their obligations. Exploring what he did to re-establish charity between neighbours, his role as a benevolent giver, and the underlying religious imperatives that directed his actions, the article illuminates central issues of lordship, law and community in a period of profound social, legal, religious and political change. Focusing mainly on England, it also uncovers the significantly different roles of the separate royal almoners of Ireland and Scotland.PostprintPeer reviewe

Church briefs in England and Wales from Elizabethan times to 1828

From Tudor times until the early nineteenth century, church or charity briefs were officially issued to individuals or groups who had suffered catastrophic financial losses, allowing them to solicit donations from a wide community of Christians. The article looks at the legal and institutional background of briefs and the changing contexts in which they operated, as well as exploring their nature, aims, receptions, and limitations. It puts a particular mechanism of charity back into the context of welfare machinery as a whole and uses its development to chart the changing (and geographically varied) relationships between institutions and society.PostprintPeer reviewe