What is Legal History Miscellany?
The three of us work on various facets of the histories of law, crime, and justice, primarily in a British context. We might consider ourselves first and foremost social historians, historians of women and gender, or historians of medicine, but typically return time and again to using sources produced by legal processes or to the history of people’s interactions with those legal processes. In addition to fancying an excuse to work together, we wanted a place to put interesting tales from the archives that never quite made it into regular publications, summaries of publications that do appear, reports on research in progress, and the occasional random musing that might be of interest to an audience beyond academia. To begin with, we aim to upload new posts on at least a monthly basis.
If you’re interested in similar topics, please reply to our posts and/or follow us on Twitter @legalmiscellany. We look forward to hearing from you!
Who are we?
Sara M. Butler is the King George III Professor in British History at The Ohio State University. She specializes in late medieval English history (13th to early 16th centuries), with books and articles on spousal abuse; divorce; infanticide; abortion by assault; death investigation; peine forte et dure; and more.
Krista Kesselring is a professor of British History at Dalhousie University (Halifax, NS). She works mainly in early modern history (c. 1500-1700), but occasionally traipses into the years beyond, with books and articles on such topics as royal pardons and mercy; riot and rebellion; coverture; criminal forfeiture; and homicide.
Katherine D. (Cassie) Watson is Professor of Criminal Justice History at Oxford Brookes University. She specializes in forensic medicine and crime in Britain between 1700 and the early twentieth century. Her publications have studied topics including poisoning, vitriol attacks, assault, child murder, and the role of scientific expertise in criminal investigations and trials.
Legal History Miscellany 
I am writing an article on neighbour disputes in England, which in due course may become the introduction to a book on the subject. My primary focus is neighbour disputes in the present times. Like many other professional lawyers, I am appalled at the disproportionality of many claims and disputes and the resultant costs and harm to the parties. I have long been an advocate for the screening of boundary claims and similar disputes, with only those claims in which serious amounts of money are at stake or significant legal issues arise, allowed to go to court. The rest, I believe, should be sent to a mandatory dispute resolution process conducted at fixed own-costs. The process would result in e.g. the final determination of a boundary, which determination would be entered on the Land Register and would thereafter be unimpeachable.Such tribunals would not award damages but may be empowered to make orders such as an order to remove a section of fencing
In writing this piece, I have looked back at Roman law and the dispute resolution process, which worked alongside the legal proceedings in property disputes. I have also looked at neighbour dispute resolution in medieval England and came across this article, which is very helpful and quite intriguing!
I am a former lecturer in legal history particularly in property law. I went into full-time professional practice as a barrister, but I have retained my interest in the field.
Thank you for this article.
Kind Regards,
Colm Lyons
Barrister.
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