Reviewed by:

• Communal Justice in Shakespeare's England: Drama, Law, Emotion by Penelope Geng
• Jessica Winston (bio)

Studies in early modern law and literature have emphasized professional and institutional transformations in the law, exploring topics such as legal jurisdiction, institutional legal reform, legal rhetoric, and legal training. Penelope Geng's book, Communal Justice in Shakespeare's England: Drama, Law, and Emotion, examines a hitherto overlooked topic, the place of popular or communal justice in early modern legal processes. As many scholars have established, the later Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods witnessed several important legal transformations, including the rise of the common law as the main legal system in England, a dramatic growth in litigation, and the increasing professionalization of legal practitioners. Yet, as Geng shows, these developments diminished longstanding practices and systems of lay or communal justice, and the popular drama of the period registered and responded to these trends.

Geng's book is compellingly researched and lucidly written. It also deserves careful reading, since the book offers many new insights into the legal and dramatic cultures of the period. A summary can allow us to appreciate Geng's approach and argument. The Preface presents a foundational observation: early modern drama often depicts justice as communal action. Plays sometimes overtly criticize legal professionals, but equally and perhaps more often they featured "ingenious nonprofessionals solving murders, grief-stricken avengers prevailing over wrongdoers, and oppressed folks exposing corrupt magistrates" (xii). Such representations offer a "pointed refusal of the law's relentless centralization" and "fed audiences' desire to see justice unfettered by legal rules and procedures" (xii). Why might this be? The answer has to do with early modern transformations in English law. The Introduction, "A Double Obligation," describes these transformations, presenting historical, critical, and theoretical contexts that inform the book. One crucial concept comes from Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social "distinction" as it relates to law. According to Bourdieu, the legal field is "the site of a competition for the monopolistic right to determine the law" (qtd. p. 6)—that is, a competition over the question of who is authorized to understand and interpret law. In the early modern period, the common law became the dominant legal tradition in England. With this growth came a rise in the sheer number of legal professionals, such as barristers, as well as the gradual coalescence of their professional identities. Such legal professionals sometimes [End Page 414] distinguished their skills and training by denigrating the capacity of ordinary people to interpret or apply law. Sir Edward Coke's Reports (1600), for instance, contended that "reading, hearing, conference, meditation, and recordation, are necessarie … to the knowledge of the common Law, because it consisteth upon so many, & almost infinite particulars" (qtd. p. 14). Also writing in 1600, William Fulbecke denigrated the average person's ability to engage in legal interpretation, writing that "magistrates are the ministers of Lawes, the Judges are interpreters, the people are the Servants," who obtain "true libertie" by subjecting themselves to magistrates and judges (qtd. p. 16). Yet, as Geng shows, while legal professionals tried to distinguish their special learning and abilities, the drama of the time often questioned such efforts, suggesting that this seemingly superior legal learning or ability was not an undisputed or inevitable fact, but something that emerged over and against popular skepticism, criticism, even scorn of those with legal expertise. Furthermore, even as the drama of the period represented popular skepticism about the legal profession, it also "shape[d] public emotions around communal justice" (21) and it sometimes "explore[d] the complicated and messy emotions inherent in … communal action" (22).

The main chapters of the book examine ways that legal authors, religious figures, dramatists, and others "sought to define lay magistracy and communal justice" (23). Chapter 1, "From Assise to the Assize at Home," discusses the history of lay justice in the assize, regional intermittent or periodic courts presided over by visiting judges of higher courts based in London. The assize emerged under Henry II as an alternative to trial by battle (30...

审核人：

• 莎士比亚笔下英国的公社正义：戏剧、法律、情感佩内洛普·耿
• 杰西卡温斯顿（生物）

早期现代法律和文学研究强调法律的专业和制度转型，探索法律管辖权、制度法律改革、法律修辞和法律培训等主题。佩内洛普·耿 (Penelope Geng) 的书，莎士比亚时代英国的公共正义：戏剧、法律和情感，研究了一个迄今为止被忽视的话题，即大众正义或社区正义在早期现代法律程序中的地位。正如许多学者所证实的那样，伊丽莎白一世晚期和詹姆士一世早期见证了几次重要的法律变革，包括普通法作为英格兰主要法律体系的兴起、诉讼的急剧增长以及法律从业人员的日益专业化。然而，正如耿所展示的那样，这些发展削弱了长期存在的非专业或社区司法实践和制度，而那个时期的流行戏剧记录并回应了这些趋势。

耿的书研究引人入胜，文笔通俗易懂。它也值得仔细阅读，因为这本书提供了许多关于那个时期的法律和戏剧文化的新见解。一个总结可以让我们领略耿的做法和论点。前言提出了一个基本的观察：早期现代戏剧经常将正义描绘为共同行动。戏剧有时会公开批评法律专业人士，但同样而且也许更多的时候，它们的特色是“巧妙的非专业人士解决谋杀案，悲痛欲绝的复仇者战胜了不法分子，以及被压迫的人们揭发腐败的地方法官”（xii）。这样的陈述提供了“对法律无情的中央集权的尖锐拒绝”和“满足了观众希望看到不受法律规则和程序约束的正义的愿望”（xii）。为什么会这样？答案与英国法律的早期现代转型有关。引言“双重义务”描述了这些转变，展示了为本书提供信息的历史、批判和理论背景。一个关键概念来自皮埃尔·布尔迪厄 (Pierre Bourdieu) 与法律相关的社会“区别”理论。根据布迪厄的说法，法律领域是“争夺决定法律的垄断权的场所”（qtd. p. 6）——即关于谁有权理解和解释法律的竞争。在近代早期，普通法成为英格兰占主导地位的法律传统。随着这种增长，法律专业人士（例如大律师）的绝对数量增加，以及他们的专业身份逐渐融合。[结束第 414 页]通过贬低普通人解释或适用法律的能力来区分他们的技能和训练。爱德华·科克爵士的报告(1600)，例如，争辩说“阅读、聆听、会议、冥想和记录，对于普通法的知识来说是必要的，因为它包含如此多的、几乎无限的细节”（qtd. p. 14 ). 同样在 1600 年，威廉·富尔贝克 (William Fulbecke) 贬低了普通人从事法律解释的能力，他写道，“治安官是法律的部长，法官是解释者，人民是仆人”，他们通过服从法律来获得“真正的自由”地方法官和法官（qtd. p. 16）。然而，正如耿所展示的，当法律专业人士试图区分他们的特殊学识和能力时，当时的戏剧常常质疑这种努力，暗示这种看似优越的法律学识或能力并不是无可争议或不可避免的事实，而是出现了一些反对普遍的怀疑、批评，甚至是对具有法律专业知识的人的蔑视的东西。此外，即使那个时期的戏剧代表了对法律职业的普遍怀疑，它也“塑造了[d]围绕公共正义的公众情绪”(21)，有时它“探索[d]……公共正义中固有的复杂而混乱的情绪行动”（22）。

该书的主要章节探讨了法律作者、宗教人物、戏剧家和其他人“试图定义非专业行政部门和社区正义”的方式 (23)。第 1 章，“从巡回审判到国内巡回审判”，讨论了巡回审判、地区间歇性或定期巡回法庭中非专业人士的历史，这些法庭由访问伦敦高等法院的法官主持。陪审团在亨利二世统治下出现，作为战斗审判的替代方案（30 ...