Course:History 344 Nasty Families/Professions/Law

Lawyers in Stuart England were an important part of the judicial system. The English during the Stuart period were described as a “litigious race,” and as a result there was a high demand for lawyers. Historian William Willcox has written that the fashionability of dueling during this period had sunk to new lows, but that informal assault in the form of litigation had taken its place, which made law an increasingly appealing profession for many English sons.

During the Stuart period, not only did lawyers rely on speech and manuscripts [?] inherited from previous practitioners, but they also began to rely more heavily on printed works. There was a large increase in the number of printed and accessible law books slightly before 1600. Part of the job of practicing lawyers were also sometimes invited to give instructional lectures at the Inns of Court.

This period has been described as the socioeconomic and political ascent of lawyers. There are many factors that have contributed to this. First, as mentioned above, the English during this time period spent a lot of time in many types of courts. A higher influx of people using the courts meant more lawyers were needed. Second, common law (which was more used than civil law) was based on precedent. Lawyers acted as repositories for the legal knowledge that had been passed down through the profession. People outside of the legal profession had not had access to the amount of legal knowledge that lawyers were exposed to, and so lawyers were an indispensable part of society. Lawyers were the “preferred interpreters” of the legal documents. Thirdly, lawyers served as intermediaries between city and countryside. There was a definite gap in the class divisions between cities, such as London, and those who remained in the countryside. Lawyers served to forge connections between these two groups, although it was mostly litigation rather than introducing country folk into society.

Despite lawyers being an important profession in England, their representations in Stuart dramas have been less than complementary. For example, one dramatist have described lawyers as “the arcane, exploitative, self-interested, and self-referential.” However, the context of these dramas must be taken into account as it provides a reason why lawyers would be portrayed in such a light. Many of these dramas were performed privately for the English aristocracy who were increasingly unhappy with the monarchy. Such dramas were intended to emphasize the institutional relationship between crown and law, which when England was unhappy with the monarchy, meant England was also now unhappy with anyone associated with it, including lawyers. However, this is an extremely biased view of the law profession and it in no way made it an unacceptable profession for sons of the English gentry. Lawyers have been identified as one of the essential factions responsible for the formation of various states. English practitioners of the law have been responsible for delivering legal knowledge through generations of followers. Not only were lawyers important as the vehicles of knowledge, but law was also recognized as useful for sons of the aristocracy and gentry families as it would help him in his private and public roles as the head of a household. Law was an acceptable and even laudable choice of career for the English gentry sons as it had the potential to increase status, depending on who they made connections with and how adept they were at practicing the law.