I had a blast at this year's British Legal History Conference at the University of Nottingham, where I was talking about my early findings from surveying the whole of the Star Chamber estreats of fines in TNA E 159. [1/3]

Today the government repealed the 1824 Vagrancy Act. The focus has been on rough sleeping but the government has also accidentality repealed one of the most anti-Romani pieces of legislation. I've been researching the act and here's why its interesting www.gov.uk/government/n... 1/5

Good riddance to this awful law: statutes.org.uk/site/the-sta... #LegalHistory

I found a quite interesting book today. It's well indexed too, for example in case you were wondering if you were obliged to let a tiger stay in your establishment? I can see how that would be a gray area, but seemingly no...

On #LovingDay, explore the legal records behind Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Supreme Court case that struck down laws banning interracial marriage. The Internet Archive has digitized and made available the briefs, lower-court opinions, and related documents. archive.org/details/micr...

New issue marks 100 years since first publication of Kafka's brilliant unfinished novel 'The Castle': guest editorial (Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko) and all research articles, essays, arts and book reviews now available on the website: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

It's taken a while, but there's now an Open Access version of an essay of mine (the publisher offered no route to OA, with or without embargo). Come and satisfy all your canon law history needs: 'Parliament and the law of the Church of England, 1943–74 peterwebster.wordpress.com/wp-content/u...

A case of LLM vs LLM: Judge Learns Lawyers on Both Sides of Case Used AI, Cancels Trial, Kicks Everyone Off the Case www.404media.co/judge-learns... #LegalAI

For anyone who published a book, article, or digital project on legal history between Jan.2025 and Dec.2026: you should apply to be featured in the ASLH's virtual event series for next yr--"Making Connections: New Works in Legal History, 2026-27." Due June 30, 2026: aslh.net/virtual-book... (1/2)

Not before time: France overturns law classing people as property – 178 years after it abolished slavery National assembly votes to repeal Code Noir under which enslaved people were beaten, raped and killed www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m... #LegalHistory #EnslavedHistory

Precisely why I started the Statutes Project: to make legislation discoverable, useable and citable. Whilst there's some very bad citation practices by historians, it is also needlessly difficult, and the infrastructure is lacking.

🚨 NEW TOOL for U.S. legal journalists ⚖️ I turned @allyjar.bsky.social's incredible crowdsourced Google doc on accessing state court records into an interactive map. Check it out and let me know about any errors, missing information, or ways I can improve this thing (link below)

A bit easier to scroll: statutes.org.uk/site/the-sta... #LegalHistory

At the Restoration in 1660, it was agreed that Charles II's reign began immediately following the death of Charles I a decade earlier, essentially ignoring the Interregnum. Some documents were even retroactively given a regnal year, like this 1649 Commonwealth record dated 1 Car. 2 [E 133/145/72]

Does anyone know what's happened to the Irish Legislation Database? When I go to www.qub.ac.uk/ild/ I get a not found message and a search isn't yielding anything. @irishstudiesqub.bsky.social @qubhistory.bsky.social @qubelfastofficial.bsky.social Panicking just a little here...

For #NationalTeaDay, what I think is the first statute to mention Tea. Taxes it, of course. A Grant of certaine Impositions upon Beere Ale and other Liquors for the encrease of His Majestyes Revenue dureing His Life. www.british-history.ac.uk/statutes-rea... #History

I'm excited to share that we've made a collection of historic Supreme Court Records and Briefs available via @archive.org I've written a blog post where I go into detail about the importance of this collection. blog.archive.org/2026/04/20/u...

🚨Tomorrow, @JudiciaryGOP & @HouseJudiciary hold a hearing on the PRO CODES Act. As SCOTUS has already ruled: “No one can own the law.” This bill threatens that precedent by extending copyright to public laws and standards, restricting your right to access the rules we live by. ⚖️🏛️

Race, Law and Empire, 1750-1850 Conference University of Southampton AND online 17th - 18th July 2026 Call for Papers extended by popular request. Full details below. Please share widely. Established, emerging researchers are very welcome. Supported by @leverhulme.ac.uk

On 11 June 2026, I'm running an online intro to early modern legal records, part of The National Archives' Practical Archival Skills Training #TNAPAST workshops. More details can be found via the link. For accompanying on-site workshops, see the below thread www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/past-early...

Story time. Back in 2009, when I started CourtListener, I had the goal of collecting all the case law. I was young, naive, and I worked really hard at it. I gathered data from places like Public.Resource.org, and scraped what I could from other sources. 1/4

Happily, our regnal year calculator - niche even by our standards - only covers the lifespan of the UK Parliament, so does not need to cope with regicide api.parliament.uk/regnal-years

A fine instance of how problematic regnal calendars are.

In 1660, judges couldn't agree on which regnal year to use in the indictment against the regicides, as the crime of killing Charles I occurred on the last regnal day of Charles I's reign but also the first of Charles II's. So they just went with "30 Jan 1649" [from Sir John Kelyng's Reports]

For the first time ever, **in 2026**, it will be legal in Missouri for pregnant women to divorce their husbands. divorce.law/guides/news/...

And he's now offering an even more comprehensive list at: statutes.org.uk/site/collect...

Look, Statutes of the Realm is nice and all, but let's be honest, this illuminated 15th Century statute book is nicer. TNA E 164/10

The Stamp Act: statutes.org.uk/site/the-sta... The repeal: statutes.org.uk/site/the-sta... #History #LegalHistory

Any #EarlyModern folks out there who could recommend printed legal materials from England in the early 1630s, especially linked to forest law? I have a student who wants to work on this area for an undergraduate dissertation, & the go-to series I know for medieval legal sources aren't helping much.

I completely forgot I made this... a big list of English judicial records, 1500 to 1800, published and often online!

Things You MUST NOT DO In Covent Garden A look at the old market byelaws painted on boards at Covent Garden. londonist.com/london/histo... #LegalHistory #London

Also worth noting for the ‘everything is online’ crowd that the numbers of archives being destroyed means that an increasing proportion cannot ever be online.

Performing Law is now published online, Open Access, extant virtually, as vibrant and vivid as a ventriloquist in a vivarium : www.cambridge.org/core/books/p... @juliestonepeters.bsky.social

Some of the most beautiful hand-drawn diagrams i've ever seen. Turkish "Justice Gazette", 1920, artist: Cerîde-i Adliyye. Source [substack] casualarchivist.substack.com/p/poetic-jus... #türkiye #infographics #stunning

A very quick bit of research, using this table statutes.org.uk/site/collect... to see how much material from the Interregnum (1649-1660) is in the English Reports. Answer: not a lot, seemingly just vol. 82, King's Bench 11, has reports from that time.

Request for help checking website functionality! On my Alsatia site, using Wordpress, I've just published two PDFs (of 1811 debtor relief acts): alsatia.org.uk/site/statute... alsatia.org.uk/site/statute... Do they work for whatever hardware & software you're using? Thanks!

“‘Aaronson v Channel 4’ sounds real, but it’s completely made up, Koutsogiannis v Random House is a real case, but Kamal’s summary was totally wrong. And the citation number he used to refer to another real case, Riley v Murray, was a reference to an entirely different one” https://bit.ly/3OqPjII

CFP: Race, Law and Empire

#OTD in 1918: The Representation of the People Act is passed, extending the vote to men over 21 and some women over 30. statutes.org.uk/site/the-sta... #History #LegalHistory

One assumes the journalists believe every piece of law should be repealed on a yearly basis and have to go back through Parliament if people want to keep it. To avoid being archaic or arcane and suchlike

a) a century is not a long time in the context of the UK parliament and the law b) it's only a century old if you count the 1911 Parliament Act and ignore the 1949 Parliament Act which amended it c) Parliament Acts are established parts of the UK system- reporting them as "old" is a weird framing

And bibliographized here: statutes.org.uk/site/collect... #Seychelles #LegalHistory

Historians and legal scholars: please submit your articles for the Burbank Global Legal History prize! Any article published in 2025 is eligible. The deadline is June 1. I am chairing the committee this year so reach out with any questions! aslh.net/award/jane-b...

The article linked in the post below: Librarianship at the Crossroads of ICE Surveillance www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2019/ice-sur... Relx & Thompson-Reuters own LexisNexis and Westlaw, two of the largest proprietory legal databases.

Given all the news about ICE in the past few weeks, can I kindly remind you all that RELX (owners of Elsevier & LexisNexis) is "mission-critical" to ICE. ICE pays RELX Group and Thomson Reuters millions of dollars for the personal data it needs to fuel its big data policing program […]

New #OpenAccess #LegalHistory from @uolpress.bsky.social Law and Justice in the 1950s Case Studies From a Neglected Decade uolpress.co.uk/book/law-and... #History

DRAFT PROGRAM: Law and Governance - 27th British Legal History Conference (Nottingham: University of Nottingham, 1-4 JUL 2026) @uniofnottingham.bsky.social esclh.blogspot.com/2026/01/draf...

Our first book of 2026 will be #Law & #Justice in the 1950s: Case Studies From a Neglected Decade, edited by Fiona Cownie and Rosemary Auchmuty, part of our #OpenAccess Reimagining Law and Justice series published with @ials.bsky.social. Read more here: uolpress.co.uk/book/law-and... #LegalStudies

When I moved to Ireland, a colleague joked - I thought then - that Irish legislation took whatever had passed in Westminster, did find-replace "Queen" with "the State", and stuck a harp on the front. Sorry for doubting you, Fachtna.

As it was asked about on Mastodon, here's the form to get Google Books to release #PublicDomain titles: support.google.com/websearch/an... NB: Snippet view shows Google has a digital version to release. NB 2: cite relevent law, or proof that author died over 70 (in UK) years ago.