News, News, News
How do you get your news today? TV? Radio? Printed newspapers? Online news sites? Social media? Today we seem to be inundated by the news 24/7 and it sometimes takes a conscious effort to step away from the barrage. News…
Early modern legal violence: for the common good?
Legal historians call the Elizabethan and early Stuart era “the bloodiest period in English criminal law.” Folger Fellow Sarah Higinbotham looks at what was happening underneath, behind, and alongside England’s black letter law.
What to eat after a long morning's work in the Star Chamber
Well, if it’s fish Friday, the menu consisted of… fish! Just after the morning session, Star Chamber judges and privy councillors enjoyed an extravagant feast in the court’s inner chamber, averaging about 35 of these dinners a year.
Filing, seventeenth-century style
When we think of filing today, we think of digital files and folders, and manilla folders, hanging files, and filing cabinets. But what did filing look like in early modern England? How did people deal with all their receipts and…
Women marking the text
“I beegan, to ourloke this Booke . . . .” These words are written by Lady Anne Clifford on the title page of her copy of John Selden’s Titles of Honor (1631), which is featured in the first case of…