Law, Justice, and Society in the Medieval World: An Introduction Through Film

This coursebook is the first full-length study of cinematic ＂legal medievalism,＂ or the modern interpretation of medieval law in film and popular culture

For more than a century, filmmakers have used the ＂Middle Ages＂ to produce popular entertainment and comment on contemporary issues. Each of the twenty chapters in Law, Justice, and Society in the Medieval World represents an original contribution to our understanding of how medieval regulations, laws, and customs have been depicted in film. It offers a window into the ＂rules＂ of medieval society through the lens of popular culture.

This book includes analyses of recent and older films, avant-garde as well as popular cinema. Films discussed in this book include Braveheart (1995), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), The Last Duel (2021), The Green Knight (2021), The Little Hours (2017), and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), among others.

Each chapter explores the contemporary context of the film in question, the medieval literary or historical milieu the film references, and the lessons the film can teach us about the medieval world. Attached to each chapter is an appendix of medieval documentary sources and reading questions to prompt critical reflection.

Esther Liberman Cuenca (Edited By)
Esther Liberman Cuenca is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Houston-Victoria. She is the author of The Making of Urban Customary Law in Medieval and Reformation England. Her essays have appeared in Urban History, The Paris Review, Historical Reflections, Popular Music, and Continuity and Change.

M. Christina Bruno (Edited By)
M. Christina Bruno is Associate Director of the Center for Medieval Studies at Fordham University in New York. She is a historian of late medieval Italy, focusing upon fifteenth-century Italian Observant Franciscans as legal and economic experts and practitioners.

Anthony Perron (Edited By)
Anthony Perron is Associate Professor of History at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He is the author of three chapters in the Cambridge Histories series, including the Cambridge History of Medieval Canon Law. He has published articles in The Catholic Historical Review, The Journal of the Historical Society, and Historical Reflections, as well as in several edited volumes.