Medieval Justice

1 Course Unit

What exactly is justice? What is its relationship to law? To what extent is it culturally contingent? How do ideas about justice change over time? This course will examine different theories and representation of justice in European Middle Ages (ca. 500-1500). We will begin by looking at aspects of dispute resolution in the early middle ages, when there was little centralized government. This was the heyday of feud, ordeal, and the law of talion, when law was largely unwritten and disputes were resolved informally by the community. We will then look at how law professionalized and how ideas of justice changed as formal legal institutions and centralized governments developed. Readings will be drawn from a variety of sources, including the so-called barbarian codes, stories of feud, accounts of crime, charters of rights, lawbooks, and trial records. 1 Course Unit