The late King Hamlet's ghost and þorgerð have similar problems. Both want to oblige someone to take action on behalf of a corpse. And both enlist the aid of part of that corpse or its facsimile in their efforts. Old Hamlet's ghost must busy himself about this matter because he was murdered, and in such a fashion that his body showed no sign of foul play. Clearly, before he can charge someone to avenge him he must announce that there is something to avenge.

Lawlessness, both the more subtle manipulative and the cruder violent varieties, has long been seen as one of the most marked features of England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Even in recent years historians have found it a difficult subject to handle. With the notable exception of K. B. McFarlane, and more recently M.T. Clanchy and G.L. Harriss, few have been prepared to deny that there was something intrinsically wrong with the administration of the law in this period, even though they may concede that it was no ‘wronger’ than in the thirteenth century, merely better documented. Underlying these discussions there is, in Clanchy's words, the often unspoken assumption ‘that the king's justice really was the norm and that justice emanated from the centre to the localities.’ Thus, the need for an extension of royal justice is set against local abuses, which all law-abiding men from the king downwards would have wished eradicated.

On October 3, 1881, William Henry Rawle, the distinguished Philadelphia lawyer and scholar, addressed students at the University of Pennsylvania Law School hoping to illustrate, ‘in a very general and elementary way,’ the differences between the growth of English and early Pennsylvania jurisprudence. ‘It would have been more interesting and more broadly useful,’ Rawle apologized to his audience, ‘if the attempt could have been extended to embrace the other colonies which afterwards became the United States, for there would have been not only the contrast between the mother country and her colonies, but the contrast between the colonies themselves.’ Rawle was confident that such an examination would have revealed how ‘in some cases, one colony followed or imitated another in its alteration of the law which each had brought over, and how, in others, the law was changed in one colony to suit its needs, all unconscious of similar changes in another.’ ‘Unhappily,’ Rawle explained, ‘this must be the History of the Future for the materials have as yet been sparingly given to the world.’

During the past twenty years historical investigations of crime and criminal justice have increased considerably. This new subfield has been hailed enthusiastically by many of its practitioners: Douglas Hay considers it one that offers a key to ‘unlocking the meanings of eighteenth century social history.’ John Styles and John Brewer view the study of crime and law as a ‘point d'appui for a social history approach that embraces both the history of society and the issues of power and authority, an approach, in other words, that resolves the “crisis of social history.”’ Moreover, Marzio Romani describes this research as one that utilizes crime as a 'symptom,’ as a link between ‘conjuncture’ and ‘structure.’

In the history of English law and the Puritan Revolution, the Levellers are generally considered opponents of the common law, who increasingly used natural law arguments in their revolutionary propaganda. John Lilburne, one of the foremost Leveller leaders, in the tract The Legall Fundamentall Liberties of the People of England published in June 1649 and at his trial for treason in October 1649 used the common law as presented in Sir Edward Coke's The Institutes of the Laws of England and his report of Dr. Bonham's Case, to support his attack on the Rump Parliament. This was only the second use of Dr. Bonham's Case in public controversy as opposed to in a private law matter. Lilburne's reliance on The Institutes and Dr. Bonham's Case also reveals how Coke's legal thought could be integrated into revolutionary thinking, i.e., the limitation of the powers of parliament, not just through judicial review, but through individual citizens' interpretation of statutory law and their individual judgment of the validity of laws. The tenet of radical Protestantism, the supremacy of individual judgment, finds expression in Lilburne's interpretation of statutes and his belief in the limited powers of Parliament. The idea that radical Protestantism led to democratic theory and shook the foundations of established institutions is given additional support by Lilburne's propaganda and defense of himself.

Discerning transitions in the emotional content of family relationships is a daunting task. In The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500–1800, Lawrence Stone has accepted the challenge exploiting ‘every possible type of evidence’ to detect an evolution in social attitudes. Reactions have generally been favorable; merits are thought to outweigh shortcomings. Even his most derisive critic concedes that the book is ‘important’ because it is of topical interest and attempts to illuminate an area of history which has previously remained obscure.