Late medieval society had a keen interest in ‘legal history’ (in a wide sense) and harboured particular expectations as a result of its invocation. Significance was attached to the utilitarian and symbolic aspects of the legal past not only by contemporary historians and chroniclers, but by representatives of all social levels: persons with differing experiences of law, who ranged from kings, judges and lawyers to unfree tenants and the rebels of 1381. This fascination was both psychologically and practically motivated and incorporated a mixture of legal, social and political designs. It was exhibited in a practical sense (mainly for evidential purposes) both in the form of the ‘community memory’ and in the growing recourse to written sources. Moreover, the practical application of knowledge of past law (including statute, case law and custom) was a developing trait within the nascent legal profession. In terms of the semiotics of law, it is apparent that symbolic resonance was derived from specific ‘statutes’ or bodies of law, from the espousal of legal ‘Golden Ages’ and more generally from the legal tradition itself. In turn, the symbolic value attached to law could itself be used for practical benefit.

The socially diverse nature of those interested in the legal past provides an important background to exploring their expectations of the law. Indeed, the immediate practical legal requirement was often a means to an end and was thus not necessarily the ultimate purpose for which people invoked the legal past. From the various forms of expression, however, we can draw together three interlinking motives. First there was an appeal to the past as a legitimising agent: the idea familiar to many historians of the common law that authority came (or was provable) through antiquity, tradition or long usage. The second, not dissimilar to the first, was the appeal to the past in order to inform or transform the legal present. Third and finally, it is possible to perceive an appreciation of and reliance on the legal past as a means of achieving identity, be it personal, corporate, regional or national.

Practical Uses

First let us examine the way knowledge of the past was put to practical use in a legal context. The common law (as historians understand it at this period) possessed authority arising from its identity as custom and practice.