On Thursday, November 20, from 18:00 to 19:30, Ian Williams, St. John’s College, Oxford University, will speak on "Precedent and Sovereignty in Early-Modern Equity: The View from the Star Chamber" as the annual History of Law and Governance Centre lecture at the University of Nottingham in Room B55 Law & Social Sciences Building. Here is Dr. Williams’s abstract:
In this lecture I shall investigate the history of precedent in early-modern equity. Precedent played a central role in equity changing from its origin as exceptional discretionary justice to its more familiar form as a body of law within the English legal system. However, the sources for examining the role of precedent in equity are very limited, if we constrain ourselves to the major private law equity courts of Chancery and Exchequer. Using the reports of cases in the criminal equity court of Star Chamber provides a much larger body of sources. Star Chamber material also enables us to consider an early-modern theorisation of equity as an emanation of sovereignty, in which deciding cases could be understood as an aspect of sovereignty and precedent as a form of legislation, and see this legislative activity in operation.
The lecture will draw upon Dr. Williams's ongoing research on the court of Star Chamber, including his editing of a volume of seventeenth century law reports and a study of the court as a provider of criminal equity.
--Dan Ernst
