IMC 2024: Sessions

What impact did the crises of the late Middle Ages have on the exercise of justice? How did legal actors obtain justice in periods of crisis? To what extent were such periods defined by the absence of good justice? How did sovereigns and ordinary people alike use legal strategies to return to ‘normality’?

In responding to these questions, this strand addresses how distinct and often competing authorities responded to crisis in an era characterised by legal plurality. In particular, the papers examine not only how authorities performed justice to assert power or buttress legitimacy, but also how more everyday legal actors employed developed and wielded their legal knowledge to navigate political, economic and social crises. With case studies drawn from England, France and the Low Countries, the sessions consider the complex relationship between crisis and justice in three distinct ways. Part I explores the discourses and media that framed debates concerning good justice; Part II presents new approaches to the contentious performance of justice at times of war, rebellion and civil conflict; and Part III brings to the fore the diverse strategies used by local actors to voice their legal concerns and manage crises in late-medieval western Europe.