ABSTRACT
This volume builds on recent strands in historiography on European socio-legal history of the early modern period, and extends it to a globally comparative scope, and to the period up until 1900. To date, historians have amply demonstrated that European early modern society was highly litigious, and have identied such as a unique feature of Western civilisation (e.g. Kagan 1981; Brooks 1986). In Western Europe, an extensive grid of law courts vested in local, regional, national and international power networks was the main contact point between the early modern state and ordinary people. Insight into the ways those courts were used is therefore crucial for a proper understanding of European history.
