
Author: Krista Kesselring
I teach British history at Dalhousie University (Halifax, NS), with a focus on the early modern period. My main current research projects examine the history of divorce and the records of the Court of Star Chamber.


Lawless Women in the Court of Star Chamber

Mystic Fictions and Lawless Fantasies at the End of the First Elizabethan Age

Doubt, Decency, and the History of English Witchcraft

Divorce and the Two Ladies Powys

Should ‘Witches’ Receive Posthumous Pardons?

The Court of Star Chamber’s Record(s) and Reports

Justice and (Mis)Fortune in the Wake of Wyatt’s Revolt

Domestic Violence and Rough Justice in Star Chamber (1612)

A New Year’s Gift and the Power to Pardon

Mary Vezey, Sarah Chapone, and the Hardships of the English Laws in Relation to Wives (1732-35)

The Laws of Moses…and of England?

Gaol Fever Stories

Can You Steal a Peacock? Animals in Early Modern Law

Disparaging Marriage in Early Modern England

Star Chamber as a Marriage Court

Unsolved Early Modern Murder Mysteries

Elizabethan Witch Trials: More Evidence (and a Map)

Apprehending Early Modern Fugitives

The Very Image of Justice? Star Chamber Records and the Art of Punishment

Slavery and Cartwright’s Case before Somerset

Mapping Durham’s Medieval Sanctuary Seekers

Star Chamber Stories: Using Criminal Law to Criminal Ends in Early Modern London

Star Chamber Stories: Elizabethan Witchcraft, Sorcery, and a Very Troubled Marriage

Star Chamber Stories: Felons’ Labours

Impeaching the Queen of England (1643/4)

Early Modern Coroners’ Inquests into Deaths in Custody

Good Friday Pardons in England

A Proposal to Enslave Petty Offenders (1621)

Licensed or Licentious? Divorce with Remarriage in Reformation England

The Short History of the Infidelity Defence in England
