Dennis R Klinck, CONSCIENCE, EQUITY AND THE COURT OF CHANCERY IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate (www.ashgate.com), 2010. xii + 315 pp. ISBN 9780754667742. £70.
| Author | Ian Williams |
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2011.0071 |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Pages | 500-502 |
The notion of conscience was at the heart of justifications for the jurisdiction and actions of several courts in medieval and early-modern England, and remains important today. This book seeks to understand what “conscience” meant in reference to the early-modern Chancery, the period which saw the last ecclesiastical Chancellors and the emergence of a more “law-like” Chancery. Klinck identifies several related issues: how did conscience determine the jurisdiction of the Chancery; did “conscience” impose standards, and if so from where did these standards come; were these standards objective or subjective?
The book is divided into nine chapters. Aside from the introduction and conclusion (both of which are excellent), the arrangement is chronological: chapters 2–4 cover the medieval period, early-sixteenth century and later sixteenth-century respectively. Chapters 5 and 6 form a unit, considering the theological material for the early-seventeenth century and then the legal material; chapters 7 and 8 repeat this format for the later-seventeenth century. Due to the continuing use of older ideas, the later chapters cannot be read in isolation.
As any legal historian will admit, English lawyers have not always been forthcoming in explaining the conceptual basis for their activities. Theoretical ideas were rarely clearly, coherently or comprehensively articulated. This challenge to Klinck's project is addressed by using non-legal material. As he rightly observes “what is unarticulated comes from somewhere” (181). Klinck proceeds from the contentious premise that lawyers would reflect wider...
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