Before their gradual disappearance in the middle ages, ordeals were used as a form of adjudication of guilt and innocence in criminal proceedings. Based on the supposition that divine knowledge and intervention would steer the results in such a way as to punish the guilty and protect the innocence, ordeals fell into disrepute after the Catholic Church banned clerical participation in 1215 A.D. This article discusses various forms of ordeals, such as the ordeal of hot iron, and analyzes whether, and to what extent, these ordeals could have served as “rational” forms of adjudication during the period.
Continue readingIan C. Pilarczyk
The 1833 murder trial of Rev. Ephraim Avery was one of the great 19th century American criminal trials. Resulting in a nearly-unprecedented amount of media interest, it became one of the first trials of its kind to achieve national, and even international, coverage. Did the good Reverend seduce, impregnate and then murder the attractive, unmarried young woman who worked in a local factory, staging her death to look as a suicide? A jury acquitted him, but there is enough evidence to suggest that Rev. Avery was culpable. The narrative of the trial allows us a window into many defining issues common to the period, such as gender, religion, sexuality, and social mores.
Continue readingTraces the increasingly-contractual nature of master-servant relations during this formative period in Montreal labor history, by analyzing the sometimes-competing but always-overlapping sources such as notarial contracts and indentures, oral agreements, provincial statutes, municipal ordinances, common law principles and judicial discretion that governed these relationships. By analyzing these sources and the cases brought before courts during this period, a clearer picture of the extent to which servants were able to protect their rights during this period, vis-à-vis their employers, emerges.
Continue readingThis articles uses extensive primary source materials from the judicial archives and newspaper accounts to analyze the legal and quasi-legal aspects of Montreal labor law during the early nineteenth century. While the letter of the law favored masters, courts were relatively even-handed in adjudicating master-servant disputes. Similarities and difference in adjudicative approaches by courts within and without the city limits are also analyzed.
Continue readingWritten in 1998 to commemorate the formal sesquicentennial of McGill University’s Faculty of Law, this was designed to be an ‘armchair’ history book. Divided into thematic chapters, the book includes many primary sources, photos, poems, songs and graphics that help illuminate the Faculty’s legacy.
Continue readingAlienation of affection– a centuries-old form of lawsuit that is apparently still alive and well!
Continue readingHello, and welcome to my legal history blog! The purpose of this website is, most simply, to explore legal history topics of interest as they arise in the news, or as they come to mind, or merely based on serendipity. It … Continue reading
“Should I Stay or Should I Go? How do you know when it’s time to make your passive job search active?”
Continue reading“Executive L.L.M Programs: Offering Flexibility, Not Shortcuts”
Continue readingInterview with SarahMarie Harman
Continue reading“Blue City Blues”
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