Publications

• Gwen Seabourne

  Women in the Medieval Common Law (Routledge, 2021)

  Surveying a wide range of points of contact between women and the common law, from their appearance (or not) in statutes, through their participation (or not) as witnesses, to their treatment as complainants or defendants, this book it argues for re-examination of some previous conclusions on the relationship between women and the common law, and highlights the interest, the complexity and the many outstanding questions which are missed or glossed over, if the common law of medieval England is examined without attention to sex and gender.
• Chathuni Jayathilaka

  Sale and the Implied Warranty of Soundness (Edinburgh, 2019)

  Sale is a transaction that is central to the economic lifeblood of a nation, yet the Scots common law contract of sale has been subjected to little analysis in the past two centuries. The default rules underlying such contracts have never been coherently systematised, and central issues are plagued by significant gaps in knowledge. This, the first book on the common law of sale since Mungo Brown’s A Treatise on the Law of Sale (1821), delves into the historical sources of Scots law as well as considering contemporary situations, to examine the implied warranty of quality – and its application across contracts of sale for personal, real and intangible property.

• Gwen Seabourne

  Imprisoning Medieval Women: The Non-judicial Confinement and Abduction of Women in England, c. 1170–1509 (Farnham, 2011)

  The non-judicial confinement of women is a common event in medieval European literature and hagiography. The literary image of the imprisoned woman, usually a noblewoman, has carried through into the quasi-medieval world of the fairy and folk tale, in which the 'maiden in the tower' is one of the archetypes. Yet the confinement of women outside of the judicial system was not simply a fiction in the medieval period. This study highlights the disparity in regulation concerning male and female imprisonment in the middle ages, and gives a useful perspective on the nature of medieval law, its scope and limitations, and its interaction with royal power and prerogative.
• Catherine Kelly

  War and the Militarization of British Army Medicine, 1793-1830 (London, 2011)

  During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, British doctors travelled in unprecedented numbers to foreign locations where they were confronted with battlefield injuries, virulent and mysterious diseases, and complex military politics that few had encountered before. Drawing on rare manuscript sources, Kelly examines how nearly twenty-five years of sustained warfare affected the professional identity embraced by those doctors and thoroughly militarized their approach to medicine. This study demonstrates the emergence of the ‘military medical officer’ and places their work within the broader context of changes to British medicine during the first half of the nineteenth century.
• I. Goold and C. Kelly (eds)

  Lawyers' Medicine: The Legislature, the Courts and Medical Practice, 1760-2000 (Oxford, 2009)

  This book investigates how the requirements, limitations and intellectual structure of the British legal process have shaped medicine and medical practice. The story of this inter-relationship is greatly under-researched, which is particularly concerning given that the legal system remains a significant and pervasive influence on medicine and its practice to this day. The question which unifies the series of historical studies presented here is whether legal consideration of medical practice and concepts has played a part in the construction of medical concepts and affected developments in medical practice - in other words how the external, legal gaze has shaped the way medicine itself conceptualises some of its practices and classifications.
• Lois Bibbings

  Telling Tales about Men: Conceptions of Conscientious Objectors to Military Service during the First World War (Manchester University Press, 2009)

  Telling Tales About Men breaks new ground in terms of research into conscientious objection and war resistance by focusing upon gender and, in particular, masculinities. It explores some of the ways in which conscientious objectors to compulsory military service were viewed and treated in England during the First World War. In doing so it considers these men's experiences, their beliefs, perceptions and actions.