Law and Disorder in Early Modern Wales

Crime and Authority in the Denbighshire Courts, c.1660-1730

Sharon Howard

This book is based on a detailed study of the court records of the county of Denbighshire in north-east Wales, focusing on the period from 1660 to 1730. 

The sheer scale of surviving early modern court archives attests to the importance of the institutions that produced them, and they have, since the 1970s become major sources for a wide range of early modernists – not simply specialists in the history of crime.  The functioning of much government and administration depended heavily on legal institutions and their officers; governance and criminal justice, in turn, depended heavily on broad participation beyond the sparse ranks of officials.  It is then a fundamental, fascinating paradox of the records of crime and the courts that they can illuminate both order and disorder, law-keepers and law-breakers, the respectable and the unruly.  They can show authority as both powerful and precarious; they reveal the divisions and inequalities as well as the shared experiences and attitudes within local communities. 

Dr. Sharon Howard is based at the Department of History and Welsh History, University of Wales, Aberystwyth and is the holder of a British Academy Post-doctoral fellowship (2003-6).