Reviews for Ungovernable People The English and Their Law in the Seventeenth Century

The average rating for Ungovernable People The English and Their Law in the Seventeenth Century based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-08-20 00:00:00 William Gibson Though each of the essays (see below) covers a different topic, they are unified by an underlying theme summed up in the introduction by the editors: “The level of violence or disorder almost invariably corresponded to the lack of responsiveness of those in authority. When first aired, a grievance was more likely to be taken through accepted legal or political channels; it was only when authorities declined to act that hostilities escalated. There was an expectation, therefore, that those in authority knew that protests about specific grievances were intended to provoke a remedial response, and not to challenge authority per se. Such an assumption was only possible as long as the aggrieved had some faith in authority's willingness to be bound by the law and the ideals it was supposed to embody.” 17 Or more pithily, here are the concluding words of the last essay, "That law, justice and order should prevail could, with very little difficulty, become the watchword of revolt.” 298 All the essays take the stand that the majority of people involved in rebellious activity believed very much in English law--they just saw a failure to abide by it or to enforce it on the part of those in charge. Violence was very much a last resort when all traditional means of complaint had gone unanswered. 1 Two concepts of order: justices, constables and jurymen in seventeenth-century England 21 Keith Wrightson, University of St Andrews 2 Grain riots and popular attitudes to the law: Maldon and the crisis of 1629 47 John Walter, University of Essex 3 'A set of ungovernable people': the Kingswood colliers in the eighteenth century 85 Robert W. Malcolmson, Queen's University, Canada 4 The Wilkites and the law, 1763-74: a study of radical notions of governance 128 John Brewer, Yale University 5 'Our traitorous money makers': the Yorkshire coiners and the law, 1760-83 172 John Styles, University of Bath 6 The King's Bench prison in the later eighteenth century: law, authority and order in a London debtors' prison 250 Joanna Innes, Girton College, Cambridge

Review # 2 was written on 2014-01-21 00:00:00 Steve Mccaughan I read this a long time ago in college. One of my mentors is an editor. It has one essay that was very important to me (Wrightson) when I wrote a dissertation in an overlapping area. It also has one of my favorite all-time academic essays, John Styles' fascinating study of Yorkshire coiners (and a demonstration of the problem with a currency actually based on metallic content and value). Kind of a step-son of the more well known Albion's Fatal Tree edited by Hay, Linebaugh, and Thompson, this collectiion shows what can happen when you marry French Annales style microhistory with Cambridge style "social science" history that entails superb sociological data analysis with a thorough culling of archival material.