To see the other types of publications on this topic, follow the link: Prerogative, Royal Constitutional history.
Journal articles on the topic 'Prerogative, Royal Constitutional history'
Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles
Consult the top 50 journal articles for your research on the topic 'Prerogative, Royal Constitutional history.'
Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.
You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.
Browse journal articles on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.
1
Müßig, Ulrike. "Constitutional conflicts in seventeenth-century England." Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis / Revue d'Histoire du Droit / The Legal History Review 76, no. 1-2 (2008): 27–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157181908x277563.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractIn the constitutional conflicts of the 17th century, both Crown and Parliament justified actions contrary to the other's will by reference to necessity. The Crown held the raising of additional finance to be necessary; the Parliament, its raising of a militia. The competence to determine a time of necessity, and to decide on the public good in it, was the key to sovereignty. In a series of cases reaching a peak in Hampden, the courts handed the Crown an unrestrained Prerogative. With the Militia Ordinance, a disturbed Parliament then claimed the competence for deciding on the public good in an emergency, even against the King's will, because its judgements as opposed to the king's discretion in his Royal prerogative were based on the common law which bound even the King. The concept of Parliament as a court of common law is often under-emphasized, though this is at the heart of the Parliament's claim to sovereignty achieved in 1689, because the Monarch could veto legislative acts, but he could not veto judgements.
2
Monballyu, J. "The political responsibility for Royal pardons in Belgium during the 19th century (1830–1900)." Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis / Revue d'Histoire du Droit / The Legal History Review 75, no. 2 (2007): 153–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157181907781352582.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractIn Belgium, the Royal Prerogative of pardoning convicted criminals was legally embedded in the Constitution of 14th February, 1831. It allowed the King to reduce a sentence or to grant a discharge of a sentence given by a court. Any Royal decision to pardon had, however, to be countersigned by a member of the Government, who took on the political responsibility of the decision towards Parliament. In most cases, the task fell upon the Minister of Justice. During the 19th century, in both Houses of the Belgian Parliament, the Minister of Justice was repeatedly questioned about the way the prerogative of pardoning was exercised. This usually occurred when a death sentence had been commuted to a lesser sentence. In such cases, members of the Chamber of Representatives or of the Senate would ask for an explicit justification of a particular pardon. Only exceptionally would a Government Minister be challenged about the legality of a decision either granting or refusing a pardon. Because of the constitutional convention which prevents exposing directly the political position of the King, Jules d'Anethan (Minister of Justice 1843–1847) defended the Minister's right to refuse to give any reasons for a decision regarding a pardon. He only acknowledged Parliament's right to question a Minister about his general policy on pardons. In his view, it was not within Parliament's powers to ask a Minister of Justice why a pardon had been granted or refused in a specific case. That view tended to limit considerably a Minister's responsibility for Royal pardons: it became no more than an empty shell. Another Minister of Justice, Théophile De Lantsheere (1871–1878), took an opposite view. He refused to state his general policy on pardons, but he accepted to explain the specific reasons why a Royal decision granting or refusing a pardon had been made. In his view, a pardon was in the first place a matter for the Minister's conscience. Parliament was therefore entitled to assess his particular actions. However, in the line of his predecessors' and successors' view, he believed that the reasons why the King had insisted on a pardon or refused to grant a pardon should not be mentioned to Parliament. Pardon was an issue between King and Government, not between King and Parliament. As the saying goes in Belgian constitutional law: The Crown should never be laid 'bare'.
3
Hulsebosch, Daniel J. "Imperia in Imperio:The Multiple Constitutions of Empire in New York, 1750–1777." Law and History Review 16, no. 2 (1998): 319–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/744104.
Full textAbstract:
At least once during his tenure, the royal governor of colonial New York received a list of questions from London. The Board of Trade, which recommended colonial policy to the king's Privy Council, sought information about the province's geography, population, trade, and legal regime. This last question often came first: “What is the constitution of the Government?” The responses, from the first British governor in 1669 to the last before the Revolution, described the imperial arrangement as a hierarchy of power flowing directly from the Crown. In 1738, for example, the lieutenant governor wrote that “The constitution is such as his Majesty by his commission to his Governour directs, whereby the Governour with the Council and assembly are empowered to pass laws not repugnant to the laws of England.” A decade later, Governor George Clinton replied more insightfully, with the help of his closest advisor, Cadwallader Colden: “The constitution of this Government is founded on His Majesty's Commission & Instructions to his Governor. But the assembly have made such Encroachments on his Majesty's Prerogative by their having the power of the purse that they in effect assume the whole executive powers into their own hands.”
4
Giurato, Rocco. "The Language of Constitutionalism and the Royal Prerogative in the English Parliament of 1593: James Morice's Speech on the Ex Officio Proceedings and his Constitutional Thought." Parliamentary History 37, no. 3 (October 2018): 327–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12401.
Full text
5
Cust, Richard. "Charles I, the Privy Council, and the Forced Loan." Journal of British Studies 24, no. 2 (April 1985): 208–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/385832.
Full textAbstract:
The Forced Loan of 1626–27 has traditionally been regarded as one of the milestones of early seventeenth-century politics. The great nineteenth-century Whig historian S. R. Gardiner saw it as the product of “new counsels” by which Charles I came increasingly to rely on the royal prerogative, and he depicted the opposition to this as a principled defense of Englishmen's liberties. Others writing in the same tradition have generally echoed these views. Thus the loan has been presented as the climax to a first stage of struggle between “Court” and “Country” or as a staging post on the “high road to Civil War.” Latterly, however, this verdict has come into question.With the work of “localist” and “revisionist” historians we have come to appreciate more clearly the extent of attachment to the local community and the continual striving toward consensus in relations between king and subject. This has led to a general revaluation of what have traditionally been regarded as clashes of principle. Local historians have stressed that opposition to taxes generally owed far more to backsliding and provincial inertia than to any concern for constitutional propriety. And a greater understanding of the problems of administration—particularly in wartime—has led to a recognition that government decision making was often a reflex action, prompted by the immediate need to make ends meet. These insights have been incorporated into the work of Conrad Russell, who has provided the most recent assessment of the loan.
6
Cox, Noel. "THE GRADUAL CURTAILMENT OF THE ROYAL PREROGATIVE." Denning Law Journal 24, no. 1 (November 27, 2012): 1–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.5750/dlj.v24i1.389.
Full textAbstract:
In the United Kingdom and those countries that recognise Elizabeth II as their Queen,1 there are to be found certain fundamental constitutional principles. One of these is that much of the legal basis of executive power derives from the Crown,2 though this has, in the past, often been downplayed for political and other reasons. Indeed, in the Commonwealth as a whole, political independence has often been equated with the reduction of the role of the Crown to a position of subservience to the political executive.3 What remains important is the position of the Crown as an organising principle of government (the framework upon which the structure of government is built4), as a source of legitimacy, and as a symbol for permanent government. Executive power, therefore, remains based on the royal prerogative, and the „third source‟ of authority (the legal powers of the legal natural person, as the Crown is a corporation aggregate), as well as upon statute law.
7
Eleftheriadis, Pavlos. "Two Doctrines of the Unwritten Constitution." European Constitutional Law Review 13, no. 3 (September 2017): 525–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1574019617000190.
Full textAbstract:
United Kingdom Supreme Court – Brexit – European Communities Act 1972 – British unwritten Constitution – Theories of the unwritten Constitution – Royal prerogative – Constitutional instruments – Higher law – Process of withdrawal from the European Union – Rule of recognition – H.L.A. Hart – A.V. Dicey – John Finnis – ‘Rule of recognition’ – Theory of sovereignty – Common law Constitution – John Laws
8
Lowe, William C. "George III, peerage creations and politics, 1760–1784." Historical Journal 35, no. 3 (September 1992): 587–609. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x0002598x.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractThis article looks at the political role of the royal prerogative to create and promote British peers in the period 1760–1784. It argues that during the first two decades of his reign George III maintained his original intention that peerage creations should befew in number and isolated from short-term political influences, but that during the prolonged political crisis that unfolded at the end of the American War of Independence, the king's power to create peers became deeply embroiled in politics. Not only were all eight of the peerages created in 1782–1783 influenced by political considerations, this aspect of the royal prerogative became itself the topic of parliamentary discussion. It was in this context of recent creations and heightened interest in the royal prerogative that George III's refusal to make peers proved to be an effective tactic in his struggle with the Fox-North coalition. Especially damaging was the coalition's inability to secure Lord North's promotion to the upper house. Once the coalition had been dismissed, George HI used his prerogative in an overtly political fashion to strengthen the younger Pitt in both houses of parliament.
9
Carafano, James Jay. "William III and the Negative Voice." Albion 19, no. 4 (1987): 509–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/4049472.
Full textAbstract:
A fresh interpretation of King William III's employment of the royal veto provides new insights into the political and constitutional issues of his reign. The veto, or the crown's negative voice as it was called by contemporaries, is a particularly fruitful subject for study in charting the course of politics in seventeenth century England. The employment of the veto offers an accurate barometer for measuring political and constitutional change. It addresses the key issue of sovereignty—who makes law? King or Parliament? It is surprising, therefore, that historians have neglected to examine the implications of William's employment of the veto. As a result, their conclusions about the veto are not supported by a full analysis of the available evidence. What they have overlooked is that a close examination of the bills the king rejected, and of contemporary views of the royal prerogative, demonstrates that underneath the turmoil of Williamite politics lay a stable foundation built on the settlement achieved at the Revolution of 1688/9.During his brief rule William III rejected a significant number of bills. Between 1692 and 1696 he vetoed five public bills: the Judges, Royal Mines, Triennial, Place, and MP Qualifications Bills. Previous Tudor and Stuart monarchs, with the exception of Queen Elizabeth I, only infrequently invoked the crown's right to refuse legislation. Queen Anne, who followed William to the throne, vetoed only one bill. She was the last monarch to employ this prerogative, although it remains theoretically a legitimate royal power.
10
Freedman, Eric M., and Christopher N. May. "Presidential Defiance of "Unconstitutional" Laws: Reviving the Royal Prerogative." American Journal of Legal History 44, no. 2 (April 2000): 226. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/846124.
Full text
11
Friedeburg, R. v. "The War Prerogative: History, Reform, and Constitutional Design, by Rosara Joseph." English Historical Review 130, no. 546 (October 1, 2015): 1285–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cev240.
Full text
12
Adhayanto, Oksep, Irman Irman, and Fithriatus Shalihah. "Comparison of the President Prerogative Rights in Indonesia Constitutions." FIAT JUSTISIA:Jurnal Ilmu Hukum 12, no. 3 (October 4, 2018): 192. http://dx.doi.org/10.25041/fiatjustisia.v12no3.1329.
Full textAbstract:
Prerogative rights can be interpreted as privileges or privileges, The Indonesian constitutional history that has used several constitutions indirectly has implications for the practice of the use of prerogative rights in Indonesia. This study research on the preogrative rights of the President in the Constitutions of Indonesia. The approach used in this study is normative juridical with the law approach model. It is concluded that the use of prerogative rights has ups and downs influenced by the concept of checks and balances and distribution of power. Therefore, the use of prerogative rights as in the previous constitution is more directed to heavy executives who do not require confirmation to other state institutions, now it has begun to be restricted so the use of the term prerogative privileges is no longer pure as before. Keyword: President, Prerogative Rights, Indonesia Constitution
13
McGlynn, Margaret. "Idiots, lunatics and the royal prerogative in early Tudor England." Journal of Legal History 26, no. 1 (April 2005): 1–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01440360500034420.
Full text
14
Ivchenko, O. "SOCIO-POLITICAL AND HISTORICAL CONDITIONS OF FORMATION OF THE IDEA OF CONSTITUTIONAL ROYALISM IN ENGLAND IN THE 17th CENTURY." Bulletin of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. History, no. 147 (2020): 22–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.17721/1728-2640.2020.147.4.
Full textAbstract:
The article is dedicated to the study of such a direction of political thought of the English Revolution of the 17th century as the constitutional royalism. This ideological direction has not been the subject of research by historians, who have focused mainly on the analysis of the ideas of supporters of Parliament. But the theory of constitutional royalism underlies the modern political system of Great Britain. This fact determines the relevance of this study. The term "constitutional royalism", first proposed by the English historian David Smith, characterizes a group of royalists who submited the idea of the king's rule in Parliament, or the idea of "mixed monarchy". The article aims to consider the historical context of the formation of the theory of constitutional royalism. The article describes the socio-political and ideological conditions that helped to form this area of political thought. The author concludes that the idea of constitutional royalism could have arisen and received its further development only in connection with the conditions prevailing in England in the 17th century. The new ruler James I wanted to strengthen the power of the monarch and make it absolute. The king and Parliament argued over the issue of the royal prerogative, namely the extraordinary rights of the monarch. James I sought to increase this prerogative, and Parliament wanted to limit it. Over time, there is a group of constitutional royalists – those who advocated the reign of the king in Parliament. Proponents of this idea believed that the monarch should retain all power, but Parliament at the same time performs advisory functions and helps the king to rule the state. Appearing during the English Revolution of the 17th century, the idea of constitutional royalism influenced on the political life of England and contributed to the formation of its modern state of affairs.
15
MacMillan, Ken, and Margaret McGlynn. "The Royal Prerogative and the Learning of the Inns of Court." American Journal of Legal History 47, no. 1 (January 1, 2005): 107. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/30039495.
Full text
16
Sakwa, Richard. "The revenge of the Caucasus: Chechenization and the dual state in Russia." Nationalities Papers 38, no. 5 (September 2010): 601–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2010.498468.
Full textAbstract:
Post-communist development in Russia has been characterized by the development of a dual state in which the constitutional order is balanced by the consolidation of an arbitrary prerogative state. This horizontal dualism has taken root in Russia's regions; and this is accompanied by the establishment of a form of vertical dualism in relations between the regions and the center. Attempts to overcome this form of segmented regionalism under president Vladimir Putin have been undermined by the development of Chechenization, which represents not only the repudiation of dualism in this republic, but threatens to undermine the precarious balance between the constitutional and prerogative states at the federal level as well. Chechenization has its opponents in Moscow as well and its fate is defined by the struggle between the factions at the center. The process of “separatism without secession” is a highly ambiguous one and reflects broader developments in the Russian state as president Dmitry Medvedev seeks to strengthen the constitutional pillar of the dual state.
17
Monaghan, Chris. "Book Review: Britain and Ireland: The War Prerogative: History, Reform and Constitutional Design." Political Studies Review 13, no. 2 (April 9, 2015): 296–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1478-9302.12087_93.
Full text
18
Bryson, W. H. "The prerogative of the sovereign in virginia: Royal law in a republic." Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis / Revue d'Histoire du Droit / The Legal History Review 73, no. 3-4 (2005): 371–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157181905774858860.
Full text
19
Allon, Niv. "War and Order in Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt (1550‒1295 BCE)." Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 148, no. 1 (June 1, 2021): 18–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/zaes-2021-0101.
Full textAbstract:
Summary This paper studies royal inscriptions of the Eighteenth Dynasty—a period of extensive military activity in Nubia and the Levant—to examine the prevailing assumption that earthly wars were conceived as mirroring a cosmic struggle between order and chaos. Instead, the sources suggest a more intricate picture, in which royal prerogative and divine will are at play, often ambiguously intertwined.
20
Wolf, Loammi. "Pre- and Post-Trial Equality in Criminal Justice in the Context of the Separation of Powers." Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal/Potchefstroomse Elektroniese Regsblad 14, no. 5 (June 8, 2017): 57. http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/1727-3781/2011/v14i5a2600.
Full textAbstract:
The previous Westminster criminal justice system entailed a different kind of separation of powers insofar as it concerns the role of state prosecutors. In the Westminster system prosecutors are part of the executive branch, whereas they were a split-off from the judiciary in constitutional states and function like a de facto second organ of the third branch of state power. Currently executive interference in state prosecutions often leads to pre-trial inequality. A further difficulty arises from the unconsidered manner in which the former royal prerogative of pardoning was retained in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. It used to be a royal veto of judicial sentences in the constitutional monarchy of the former Westminster model. Although the corresponding veto of parliamentary legislation by the head of state did not survive into modern times, the pardoning power has not been discontinued. Section 84(2)(j) thus causes an irreconcilable conflict with section 165(5) of the Constitution which guarantees the legally binding force of judicial decisions. It undermines the rule of law and leads to post-trial inequality in the execution of sentences. The parole system, which dates back to 1959, likewise allows the executive to overrule judicial sentences and is in conflict with section 165(5). The perpetuation of the status quo in criminal justice is in effect leading to a re-Westminstering of the constitutional state.
21
Mann, Bruce H. "The Multiple Constitutions of Constitutional History." Law and History Review 16, no. 2 (1998): 387–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/744106.
Full textAbstract:
One of my few unrepressed childhood memories is of a high-school field trip to the Massachusetts State House in Boston. The docent, a hapless but not entirely innocent volunteer, addressed us in a tone of perky condescension usually reserved for precocious six-year-olds. Thus, when he stood before an object of local veneration—the state constitution of 1780, I think, or perhaps one of the royal charters—and clucked, “Now class, does anyone know what ‘constitution’ means?,” it was with casual adolescent malice that a voice from the back answered, “Yeah, it has something to do with metabolism.”
22
PARCELLS, ASHLEY. "RURAL DEVELOPMENT, ROYAL HISTORY, AND THE STRUGGLE FOR AUTHORITY IN EARLY APARTHEID ZULULAND (1951–4)." Journal of African History 59, no. 2 (July 2018): 199–219. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021853718000403.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractFrom 1951, apartheid officials sought to implement soil rehabilitation programs in Nongoma, the home district of Zulu Paramount Chief Cyprian Bhekuzulu. This article argues that these programs brought to the surface fundamental questions about political authority in South Africa's hinterland during the first years of apartheid. These questions arose from ambiguities within native policy immediately after the passage of the 1951 Bantu Authorities Act: while the power of chiefs during the colonial and segregationist era in Zululand had been tied to their control of native reserve land, in Nongoma, these development interventions threatened that prerogative at the very moment apartheid policy sought to strengthen ‘tribal’ governance. In response, the Zulu royal family in Nongoma called on treaties with the British from the conquest era, colonial law, and the very language of apartheid to reassert chiefly control over land, and more importantly, to negotiate this new apartheid political order.
23
Patterson, Catherine. "Quo Warranto and Borough Corporations in Early Stuart England: Royal Prerogative and Local Privileges in the Central Courts*." English Historical Review 120, no. 488 (September 1, 2005): 879–906. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cei239.
Full text
24
Häkkinen, Teemu. "Challenging the Royal Prerogative: The Decision on War against Iraq in Parliamentary Debates in 2002-3." Parliamentary History 35, no. 1 (February 2016): 54–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12184.
Full text
25
Evans, Hywel, and Andrew Williams. "ADF Offensive Cyberspace Operations and Australian Domestic Law: Proprietary and Constitutional Implications." Federal Law Review 47, no. 4 (September 9, 2019): 606–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0067205x19875011.
Full textAbstract:
An Australian Offensive Cyberspace Operations (OCO) capability has emerged as an important sub-component of national power. While significant academic literature exists concerning OCO’s place within the international law of armed conflict, and international law in general, literature regarding domestic law is scarce. Nevertheless, an understanding of the domestic law governing the Australian Defence Force’s (ADF’s) authority to conduct OCO is necessary as the gap in the research potentially exposes the Government and individuals to legal risks that are not well understood. The aim of this article is to analyse the proprietary and constitutional implications of ADF OCO to inspire further research at a time when the Comprehensive review of the legal framework governing the National Intelligence Community is underway. The qualitative research analyses statutory and case law authorities to argue that Australian proprietary and constitutional law creates important implications for ADF OCO. The analysis suggests that these implications oblige the Commonwealth to be careful in balancing its legislative and executive power to provide the ADF with the legal authority to conduct OCO. The research finds that OCO impinges upon the proprietary rights of others, requiring legal authority which, if created under statute, generates an obligation to compensate proprietors under just terms. However, if the authority arises under the executive power, then the obligation to compensate may not apply. Further, such executive powers may exist under a royal war prerogative. As a corollary, we suggest that in an escalated conflict environment, the ADF may be able to conduct OCO without any legislative amendments to the criminal law although express immunities would be preferred.
26
Beckerman, John S. "Procedural Innovation and Institutional Change in Medieval English Manorial Courts." Law and History Review 10, no. 2 (1992): 197–252. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/743761.
Full textAbstract:
In England during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, the royal courts cast a longer and longer shadow over private and local jurisdictions. By a series of steps embracing much innovation, the custom of the king's court gradually became the common law of England, and the royal courts asserted their supremacy over other jurisdictions in many areas. Foremost among these were disputes over freehold land and cases involving felonies. It has been suggested that the royal innovations’ jurisdictional effects on private courts were “neither intended nor foreseen.” Nonetheless, they reduced private jurisdictions—with the exception of the palatinates—to constitutional insignificance during the thirteenth century. Occasional baronial objections, such as that enshrined in clause thirty-four of Magna Carta or the bluff waving of a rusty sword at a quo warranto inquest do not disguise this basic fact of English legal and constitutional history.
27
Golden, Charles. "FRAYED AT THE EDGES: COLLECTIVE MEMORY AND HISTORY ON THE BORDERS OF CLASSIC MAYA POLITIES." Ancient Mesoamerica 21, no. 2 (2010): 373–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956536110000246.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractThis article explores social memory and history as they pertain particularly to secondary political centers on the edges of the Classic Maya kingdoms of Piedras Negras and Yaxchilan. Over the course of the Late Classic period (a.d. 600–900) the rulers of Maya polities in the Usumacinta River basin increasingly relied on the subordinate lords who governed these secondary centers to patrol and control the boundaries of their territories. For the rulers of any state, formulating an appropriate and coherent history to guide social memory is a critical political act for maintaining the cohesion of the political community. But as the Classic period progressed, client lords were increasingly permitted a formerly royal prerogative; they were accorded their own inscribed monuments. The monuments, together with associated ritual performances, were an integral part of the construction of history and collective memory in local communities and allowed secondary nobles to restructure social memory for their own interests. This trend, in turn, increased the potential for royal history and authority to be contested throughout the kingdom. Through several case studies this paper examines the ways that subordinate nobles could contest social memory and history sanctioned by primary rulers and the ways in which kings acted to maintain the reins of history and memory.
28
Till, Barry. "The Worcester House Declaration and the Restoration of the Church of England1." Historical Research 70, no. 172 (June 1, 1997): 203–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-2281.00040.
Full textAbstract:
Abstract This article examines the Worcester House Declaration, arguably the most serious attempt at comprehension in the Church of England since the Reformation. It describes the negotiations from the Reliquiae of Richard Baxter and from an hitherto unpublished letter of Bishop Morley which centres on the proposal of conditional ordination, which would have been unacceptable to many Presbyterians. It compares the final Declaration with the original draft, demonstrating how far the king was prepared to go to meet historic Puritan demands and to incorporate the proposals made at the time by such moderate Anglicans as Gauden and Stillingfleet. It details the abortive Puritan attempt to pass the Declaration through the Commons, and assesses its status in the context of the royal prerogative.
29
Ben-Bassat, Yuval. "The Ottoman institution of petitioning when the sultan no longer reigned: a view from post-1908 Ottoman Palestine." New Perspectives on Turkey 56 (April 21, 2017): 87–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/npt.2017.6.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractThe Young Turk Revolution of 1908 helped transform the time-honored Ottoman petitioning system. The reinstatement of parliamentary life, the reintroduction of the suspended constitution of 1876, and the lifting of the ban on the press and political action all generated profound political and social changes. Subjects’ petitions reflected these changes vividly and in often surprising detail. As the sultan became a figurehead with little actual power, petitions which hitherto had been addressed to the sultan either directly or through the grand vizier and had requested his benevolence and mercy, while also granting him much needed legitimacy, now began to be sent instead to the Council of State (Şura-yı Devlet), the parliament, and various government ministries. Their content changed as well, as will be shown in this article through an analysis of dozens of petitions from Ottoman Palestine. Petitions now sought to obtain political rights and ensure civil equity and constitutional rights. In focusing on rights, the rule of law, and the deficiencies of the former system, the petitions echoed changes in popular discourse and mirrored the transformation from justice as a sultanic prerogative to constitutional and civil law.
30
Taylor, Miles. "The Bicentenary of Queen Victoria." Journal of British Studies 59, no. 1 (January 2020): 121–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2019.245.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractThe past year, 2019, was the bicentenary of the birth of Queen Victoria. Since 2001, the centenary of her death, much has changed in the scholarship about the British queen. Her own journals and correspondence are more available for researchers. European monarchies are now being taken seriously as historical topics. There is also less agreement about the Victorian era as a distinct period of study, leaving Victoria's own relationship with the era she eponymizes less certain. With these changing perspectives in mind, this article looks at six recent books about Victoria (four biographies, one study of royal matchmaking, and one edited volume) in order to reassess her reign. The article is focused on three themes: Queen Victoria as a female monarch, her role in building a dynastic empire, and her prerogative—how she influenced the politics of church and state. The article concludes by warning that biography is not the medium best suited for taking advantage of all the new historical contexts for understanding Queen Victoria's life.
31
Bachrach, David S. "Royal Justice, Freedom, and Comital Courts in Ottonian Germany." Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Germanistische Abteilung 137, no. 1 (August 25, 2020): 1–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/zrgg-2020-0001.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractThe free population of the early medieval German kingdom largely has disappeared from the historiographical tradition due to the influence of the New Constitutional History and its contemporary intellectual successors. One important result of this writing out of history of the free has been a thorough distortion of the roles and purposes of the royal government, and the relationship between the ruler and his free subjects. This essay seeks to redress this imbalance by identifying the king’s obligations to his free subjects, particularly in the areas of law and justice. The focus of the study is on the role played by counts, as royal officials, in providing a forum for the free to adjudicate their legal disputes and to obtain justice for injuries that they had sustained. A thorough investigation of the Ottonian period reveals that comital courts continued to function throughout the tenth and early eleventh century as venues for royal justice in a manner thoroughly consistent with the institutions of Carolingian East Francia.
32
Pettigrew, William A. "Corporate Constitutionalism and the Dialogue between the Global and Local in Seventeenth-Century English History." Itinerario 39, no. 3 (December 2015): 487–501. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s016511531500090x.
Full textAbstract:
This forum discusses the utility of ‘corporate constitutionalism’ as a category of historical analysis. Corporate constitutionalism privileges the constitutional activities of international trading corporations to understand the cross-cultural dynamics at work in European expansion. William A Pettigrew sets out the possibilities of corporate constitutionalism in the first essay which defines the concept, makes the case for viewing trading corporations as constitutional entities at home and abroad, signals some possible interpretive benefits for historians of empire, corporate historians, global historians, and constitutional historians, before offering an illustrative case study about the Royal African Company. Leading thinkers in international history (David Armitage), legal history (Paul Halliday), constitutional theory (Vicki Hsueh), and corporate history (Thomas Leng and Philip J Stern) offer their reflections on the possibilities of this new approach to the international activities of trading corporations. Although the Forum focuses on seventeenth century English trading corporations, it proposes to start a discussion about the utility of corporate constitutionalism for other European corporations and for periods both before and after the seventeenth century.
33
Ward, Ian. "The Casebook of Sir Edward Coke." Pólemos 15, no. 2 (September 1, 2021): 161–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/pol-2021-2012.
Full textAbstract:
Abstract Sir Edward Coke, Jacobean Lord Chief Justice, is commonly regarded as being one of the great jurists in English legal history. In considerable part, for reason of his vigorous defence of the courts of common law against the seeming intrusions of royal prerogative, his running dispute with King James I is renowned, not least as a precursor to the civil wars which would later engulf James’s son, King Charles I. The purpose of this essay is revisit Coke and, more closely still, some of his most famous judgments, in order to trace the origins of the principle of ‘legality’. It will close in whimsical tones, by wondering what Coke might have thought of ‘legal’ regime put in place in the UK during the coronavirus pandemic.
34
Pašeta, Senia. "Nationalist responses to two royal visits to Ireland, 1900 and 1903." Irish Historical Studies 31, no. 124 (November 1999): 488–504. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021121400014371.
Full textAbstract:
In July 1903 Maud Gonne hung a black petticoat from the window of her Dublin home, insulting her unionist neighbours and provoking what became known as ‘the battle of Coulson Avenue’. Aided by nationalist friends, athletes from Cumann na nGaedheal and her sturdy housekeeper, she defended her ‘flag’ against police and irate neighbours. Gonne’s lingerie — allegedly a mark of respect for the recently deceased pope — flew in stark and defiant contrast to the numerous Union Jacks which lined her street in honour of King Edward VII’s visit to Ireland. This episode heralded a month of spectacular protest which polarised nationalist opinion. Like the visit to Dublin of Queen Victoria in 1900, King Edward’s tour provoked both enormous public interest and rivalry between various Irish institutions which vied to express their loyalty to the crown. But the royal tours also instigated fierce debate within the nationalist community and highlighted the ever deepening rifts between constitutional nationalism and ‘advanced’ nationalism.
35
Mort, Frank. "Safe for Democracy: Constitutional Politics, Popular Spectacle, and the British Monarchy 1910–1914." Journal of British Studies 58, no. 1 (January 2019): 109–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2018.176.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractHow did the British monarchy respond to the multiple challenges of early twentieth-century mass democracy? Historians have separated the growth of constitutional sovereignty from the practice of a welfare monarchy, or from royalty as decorative and media friendly. This article argues that the political transformation of the modern monarchy was inseparable from innovations to its style and presentation. Opening with the dramatic constitutional crisis that confronted George V and his advisors in 1910, I show how the monarchy's entanglement in high politics forced the crown to assume an increasingly neutral, arbitrarial stance on industrial disputes and on the Irish question, despite the king's own conservatism. Simultaneously, George V invested in styles of royal accessibility and informality that contrasted sharply with other major European dynasties, in a series of royal tours across the industrial heartlands of England and Wales in 1912 and 1913. Extensively covered by the national and imperial press and by the newsreels, these visits to the strongholds of laborism promoted a vision of patrician democracy that drew heavily on traditions of organic, one-nation conservatism. But they also positioned royalty and the people in a new imaginary relationship that was more personal and intimate. Both versions had long-term consequences for the British monarchy across the twentieth century.
36
Martin, John E. "Refusal of Assent – A Hidden Element of Constitutional History in New Zealand." Victoria University of Wellington Law Review 41, no. 1 (May 3, 2010): 51. http://dx.doi.org/10.26686/vuwlr.v41i1.5245.
Full textAbstract:
This article explores Britain's influence historically over legislation passed in the New Zealand Parliament. It suggests that Britain's role was substantial, particularly in the 19th century. For nearly a century, from 1854 until New Zealand adopted the Statute of Westminster in 1947, all New Zealand laws (of which nearly one hundred laws were reserved) were sent to Britain for scrutiny. In thirteen instances laws were considered sufficiently problematic that Britain either disallowed legislation already assented to by the Governor or, alternatively, refused assent to or withheld assent from reserved legislation. Other legislation was amended on Britain's instructions.The exercise of royal assent was an important ingredient in New Zealand's development and an integral part of its movement from colony to independent nation.
37
Coast, David. "Speaking for the People in Early Modern England*." Past & Present 244, no. 1 (July 31, 2019): 51–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtz024.
Full textAbstract:
Abstract The voice of the people is assumed to have carried little authority in early modern England. Elites often caricatured the common people as an ignorant multitude and demanded their obedience, deference and silence. Hostility to the popular voice was an important element of contemporary political thought. However, evidence for a very different set of views can be found in numerous polemical tracts written between the Reformation and the English Civil War. These tracts claimed to speak for the people, and sought to represent their alleged grievances to the monarch or parliament. They subverted the rules of petitioning by speaking for ‘the people’ as a whole and appealing to a wide audience, making demands for the redress of grievances that left little room for the royal prerogative. In doing so, they contradicted stereotypes about the multitude, arguing that the people were rational, patriotic and potentially better informed about the threats to the kingdom than the monarch themselves. ‘Public opinion’ was used to confer legitimacy on political and religious demands long before the mass subscription petitioning campaigns of the 1640s.
38
Bolshakov, Vladimir A. "Royal women-sistrophoroi: to the interpretation of sistrum symbolism un cultic practice of the New Kingdom Period." Vostok. Afro-aziatskie obshchestva: istoriia i sovremennost, no. 4 (2021): 25. http://dx.doi.org/10.31857/s086919080015730-0.
Full textAbstract:
The present article deals with the symbolism of the sistrum in the cultic and ceremonial practice of the New Kingdom period. As a sacred musical instrument, closely associated with Hathor and other goddesses identified with her (Tefnut, Sakhmet, Bastet, Iusaas, Nebet-Hetepet), the sistrum of two types (sSSt and sxm) was widely used in performing various religious rituals and ceremonies. Since the dominant type in the iconography of the king’s wives and mothers of the New Kingdom is their image playing the sistrum/sistra, the author focuses primarily on the main female representatives of the royal family. The article provides a brief overview of iconography, laudatory epithets of royal women and accompanying inscriptions to the use of sistra. A study of official cultic and ceremonial scenes with royal women shaking sistra, allows the author to define three main objects of veneration: a. gods; b. goddesses; c. king. The author also puts into doubt the interpretation widespread in modern Egyptology, according to which, the sexual energy of the supreme deity was stimulated through playing music. Moreover, the absence of the important title “god’s wife/hand” in the protocol of some royal women does not allow reducing their cultic role to the personification of the consort/daughter of a solar deity. A critical approach to this interpretation makes it possible to state that playing sistra was not an exclusively female prerogative and was not limited to the strict opposition “royal woman – god”. Besides, one can conclude that the use of sistra as liturgical objects was a prerequisite for performing offering rituals.
39
Hoff, Samuel B. "The Presidential Pocket Veto: Its Use and Legality." Journal of Policy History 6, no. 2 (April 1994): 188–208. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0898030600003717.
Full textAbstract:
The general constitutional authority of the President to veto legislation passed by Congress has recently received renewed scholarly attention. However, few studies have focused on the pocket veto—the power to negate proposed laws sent for approval without the possibility of reconsideration—and its ramifications for presidential effectiveness. This research comprehensively investigates the creation, development, and employment of the pocket veto. First, this article will trace the history of this form of executive prerogative from colonial times through its establishment in the Constitution. Second, it will review the use of the pocket veto in the nineteenth century. Third, it will undertake a seminal empirical probe of influences on public-bill pocket-veto frequency from 1889 to 1989. Fourth, I will delineate congressional and court challenges to the use of this executive device. In the final section, I will assess the consequences of heightened consternation over pocket-veto use.
40
Smith, David L. "‘The More Posed and Wise Advice’: The Fourth Earl of Dorset and the English Civil Wars." Historical Journal 34, no. 4 (December 1991): 797–829. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x00017301.
Full textAbstract:
‘To me he was always the embodiment of Cavalier romance.’ Thus Vita Sackville-West on her seventeenth-century ancestor, Edward Sackville, fourth earl of Dorset. Such labelling indicates the problems which still bedevil any study of Civil War royalism. Brian Wormald'sClarendonbrilliantly revealed that the men who joined Charles I in 1642 represented a broad range of opinion. Above all, he made us aware of a coherent group of moderate (‘constitutional’) royalists who throughout sought accommodation. There was a palpable difference of strategy between these people, who favoured royal concessions in order to prevent further military initiatives, and others who favoured military initiatives in order to prevent further royal concessions. Within these two basic matrices, there were further subtle inflections of attitude between individuals and within the same individual over time. But many such inflections remain murky. Wormald's lead was never followed through. Charles's supporters have consistently received less attention than those who remained with parliament; and among the royalists, moderates have attracted fewer studies than ‘cavaliers’ and ‘swordsmen’. There is thus an urgent need to clarify different varieties of royalism and especially to bring the constitutional royalists into sharper focus. However, before we can assess their wider aims and impact, we must first identify them; and here the inappropriate labels bestowed on so many of Charles's supporters create real problems. Anne Sumner has recently ‘de-mythologized’ John Digby, first earl of Bristol, revealing him as more complex and less intemperate than the ‘hawk’ of legend.
41
Levinson, Bernard. "THE RECONCEPTUALIZATION OF KINGSHIP IN DEUTERONOMY AND THE DEUTERONOMISTIC HISTORY'S TRANSFORMATION OF TORAH." Vetus Testamentum 51, no. 4 (2001): 511–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685330152939523.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractBecause the royal ideology of ancient Israel was largely identical to that of the broader ancient Near East, the points of divergence are the more remarkable. In particular the legal corpus of Deuteronomy conceptualizes the king in a way that rejects all prevailing models of monarchic power, both Israelite and Near Eastern. Deuteronomy submits a utopian manifesto for a constitutional monarchy that sharply delimits the power of the king. This redefinition of royal authority takes place as part of a larger program (Deut. xvi 18-xviii 22) whereby the authors of Deuteronomy redefine the jurisdiction of each branch of public office (local and central judicial administration, kingship, priesthood, and prophecy). Each is subordinated, first, to the requirements of cultic centralization, and, second, to the textual authority of deuteronomic Torah. This utopian delimitation of royal power never passed from constitutional vision into historical implementation: it represented such a radical departure from precedent that the Deuteronomistic Historian, precisely while seeming to implement deuteronomic law, pointedly reversed the deuteronomic program and restored to the monarch all that Deuteronomy had withheld.
42
Wilson, Lee B. "A “Manifest Violation” of the Rights of Englishmen: Rights Talk and the Law of Property in Early Eighteenth-Century Jamaica." Law and History Review 33, no. 3 (July 8, 2015): 543–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0738248015000279.
Full textAbstract:
In 1706, Jamaica's provost marshal received a writ of escheat from the island's Supreme Court of Judicature. The writ directed him to empanel a jury of “Twelve and Lawful Men of the Neighbourhood” who would determine whether the slaves of James Whitchurch, a Jamaican merchant, should be escheated—returned—to the Crown. Did the “Negro Woman Slave Commonly Called Catalina” and her “Seaven Pickaninny” belong to Whitchurch, or could Queen Anne claim her prerogative right to an escheat because the previous owner of the slaves, Charles Delamaine, had died without an heir? The jury found in the Crown's favor, but a dissatisfied Whitchurch petitioned Queen Anne for relief, asking her to return the slaves and quiet his title. Whitchurch's petition, the first Jamaican escheat case to come before the Queen, sparked a transatlantic legal controversy as colonists, Assembly members, and imperial officials weighed the Crown's prerogative right to escheats against local political grievances and the Board of Trade's desire to encourage West Indian settlement and trade. This seemingly mundane conflict over property law quickly acquired constitutional significance, generating the kind of rights talk so familiar to early American historians: Jamaican colonists claimed the rights of Englishmen, and the Jamaican Assembly asserted an institutional capacity akin to Parliament. In this article, I contextualize colonists' rights talk, rooting their claims to English rights in concerns about the administration of property law during a crucial liminal moment in Jamaican history. As the colony transitioned from a small-scale to a large-scale plantation economy and from a society with slaves to a slave society, property and the law that governed it became the focus of intense political conflict.
43
CRAIG, DAVID M. "THE CROWNED REPUBLIC? MONARCHY AND ANTI-MONARCHY IN BRITAIN, 1760–1901." Historical Journal 46, no. 1 (March 2003): 167–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x02002893.
Full textAbstract:
In the last two decades historians have been increasingly interested in the modernization of the monarchy, and the nature of the republican threat. This review evaluates some of this recent literature. The first section argues that while Walter Bagehot's views about ceremony in The English constitution (1867) have influenced historical writing, these approaches do not yield much information about what the monarchy actually meant to people. The second section turns to the political powers of the monarchy, and examines the wide range of views about what the constitutional limits of royal power were. It also shows that even radical writers were often unable to dispel the monarchy from their imaginations. Finally, the review suggests that criticism of the royal family was not necessarily republican, and arose more from concern that particular figures were failing to conform to shared public values. Pure republicans were few, and did not usually focus their energies on the monarchy, but rather on the nature of parliamentary representation and the power of the Lords.
44
Wormald, Patrick. "Anglo-Saxon Law and Scots Law." Scottish Historical Review 88, no. 2 (October 2009): 192–206. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/e0036924109000857.
Full textAbstract:
Patrick Wormald used legal material buried deep in volume i of the Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland to argue for a comparatively maximalist view of early Scottish royal government. The paper compares this Scottish legal material to two Old English codes to show that there existed in Scotland structures of social organisation similar to that in Anglo-Saxon England and a comparable level of royal control over crime by the early eleventh century. The model of a strong judicial regime in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, put forward fully by Wormald in volume i of The Making of English Law, suggests that the kingdom of the Scots could have been inspired by (or followed a parallel trajectory to) its Anglo-Saxon neighbour in its government's assumption of rights of amendment previously controlled by kin-groups. English influence on Scottish legal and constitutional development can therefore be seen in the tenth and eleventh centuries as much as it can in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The paper also suggests methods of examining the legal material in volume i of the Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland and effectively clears the way for further study of this neglected corpus of evidence.
45
Rodríguez O., Jaime E. "The Struggle for the Nation: The First Centralist-Federalist Conflict in Mexico." Americas 49, no. 1 (July 1992): 1–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1006882.
Full textAbstract:
When Mexico achieved its independence in September 1821, few imagined that the country would soon become a republic, much less a federal republic. The autonomists, the members of the national elite who gained power at independence, opted for a constitutional monarchy. They initially favored establishing an empire with the Spanish king or a member of the royal family as sovereign. When Spain rejected their proposal, and faced with “popular” demands, the country's political leaders reluctantly accepted a native, Agustín de Iturbide, as Mexico's first emperor. The new monarch, a former royalist commander, had gained immense popularity when he turned against the Spanish colonial regime and proclaimed independence under the Plan of Iguala.
46
Quinault, Roland. "Westminster and the Victorian Constitution." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 2 (December 1992): 79–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3679100.
Full textAbstract:
The British constitution is unwritten, but not unbuilt. The character of Britain's government buildings reflects the nature of its political system. This is particularly true with respect to the Houses of Parliament. They were almost entirely rebuilt after a fire, in 1834, which seriously damaged the House of Commons and adjacent buildings. The new Houses of Parliament were the most magnificent and expensive public buildings erected in Queen Victoria's reign. Their architectural evolution has been meticulously chronicled by a former Honorary Secretary of the Royal Historical Society, Professor Michael Port. But constitutionalists and historians have shewn little or no interest in the political character of the Victorian Houses of Parliament. Walter Bagehot, in his famous study, The English Constitution, published in 1867, made no reference to the newly completed Houses of Parliament. Likewise most modern books on Victorian political and constitutional history make no mention of die rebuilding.
47
GAILMARD, SEAN. "Imperial Politics, English Law, and the Strategic Foundations of Constitutional Review in America." American Political Science Review 113, no. 3 (April 10, 2019): 778–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0003055419000212.
Full textAbstract:
In the colonial period of American history, the British Crown reviewed, and sometimes nullified, acts of colonial assemblies for “repugnancy to the laws of England.” In this way, Crown review established external, legal constraints on American legislatures. I present a formal model to argue that Crown legislative review counteracted political pressure on imperial governors from colonial assemblies, to approve laws contrary to the empire’s interests. Optimal review in the model combines both legal and substantive considerations. This gives governors the strongest incentive to avoid royal reprisal by vetoing laws the Crown considered undesirable. Thus, review of legislation for consistency with higher law helped the Crown to grapple with agency problems in imperial governance, and ultimately achieve more (but still incomplete) centralized control over policy. I discuss the legacy of imperial legislative review for early American thinking about constitutional review of legislation by courts.
48
FUWONGCHAROEN, PULI. "‘Long Live Ratthathammanūn!’: Constitution worship in revolutionary Siam." Modern Asian Studies 52, no. 2 (January 15, 2018): 609–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x16000366.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractSiam managed to replace royal absolutism with limited monarchy in June 1932 without any chaos or bloodshed. But the transition quickly proved to be far from complete. The country was to undergo a major upheaval before suffering a semi-civil war only about a year after the princely rule was toppled. The new regime, accordingly, began to consider its constitution as a symbol behind which the people could be mobilized. A massive campaign for the document was then launched in late 1933 and it soon culminated in what can be regarded as the practice of constitution worship. This article will look at the campaign in detail, especially with respect to its underlying logics; the aim is to reveal and analyse the attempt by the revolutionary regime to transform the first permanent constitution into a sacred entity. Meanwhile, in pursuing such an aim, this article will shed light on the formation of a constitutional culture in Siam. Given that a basic law had never existed in the country, the article will discuss not only how the state promoted the permanent constitution, but also how the Siamese society encountered and experienced constitutional rule for the first time.
49
Wilks, Michael. "Wyclif and the wheel of time." Studies in Church History 33 (1997): 177–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0424208400013255.
Full textAbstract:
During the 1370s Wyclif wrote to defend a monarchy which made extensive use of bishops and other clergy in the royal administration and yet was faced with aristocratic factions encouraged by bishops like Wykeham and Courtenay who espoused papal supremacy, if not out of conviction, at least as a very convenient weapon to support their independence against royal absolutism. At first sight Wyclifs attempts to define the right relationship between royal and episcopal, temporal and spiritual, power seem as confused as the contemporary political situation. His works contain such a wide range of theories from orthodox two swords dualism to a radical rejection of ecclesiastical authority well beyond that of Marsilius and Ockham that it seems as if his only interest was in collecting every anti-hierocratic idea available for use against the papacy. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that a much more coherent view of episcopal power can be detected beneath his tirades if it is appreciated that his continual demand for a great reform, a reformatio regni et ecclesiae, is inseparably linked to his understanding of the history of the Christian Church, and that in this way Wyclif anticipates Montesquieu in requiring a time factor as a necessary ingredient in constitutional arrangements.
50
Lammerts, D. Christian. "Narratives of Buddhist legislation: Textual authority and legal heterodoxy in seventeenth through nineteenth-century Burma." Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 44, no. 1 (December 14, 2012): 118–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022463412000653.
Full textAbstract:
For more than a century scholars of central and western mainland Southeast Asia have sought to characterise the status ofdhammasattha— the predominant genre of written law from the region before colonialism — and define its authority vis-à-vis Pali Buddhism. For some,dhammasatthatexts represent a predominantly ‘secular’ or ‘customary’ tradition, while for others they are seen as largely commensurate with, if not directly derived from, the religio-political ideas of a cosmopolitan and purportedly canonical ‘Theravāda’. However, scholarship has yet to investigate the way that regional authors during the late premodern period themselves understood the character and legitimacy of written law. The present article examines seventeenth through nineteenth-century Burmese narratives concerning the genealogy and status ofdhammasatthato advance a pluralist conception of the relationship between law and religion in Southeast Asian history. This analysis addresses a historical context where ideas concerning Buddhist textual authority were in the process of development, and where there were multiple and competing discourses of legal ideology in play. For elite monastic critics closely connected with royalty,dhammasatthastood in problematic relation to authoritative taxonomies of scripture, and its jurisprudence was seen to contradict authorised accounts of the origin and nature of Buddhist law; the genre thus required reform to be brought into alignment with what were construed as orthodox legal imaginaries. The principal hermeneutic move these monastic commentators performed to achieve this involved redescribingdhammasatthain light of such accounts as a variety of Buddhist royal legislation and written law as the prerogative of the Buddhist state.