ABSTRACT
A judgment is a performance. This chapter recalls that judgment is not only something produced, but also something that is done—but not only done: it is performed. Judgments are not only a set of rationally authoritative objects of knowledge and governance but are also the product of something that is done by living, breathing humans—and something, moreover, that is done in particular material or physical settings. The emergence of the common law as a written tradition can be traced at least as far as 1066, and the Norman conquest of England. The judgments used for the most part by the legal profession are not those most closely connected to the judgment itself—as a speech or performance given by a judge in court—but are second-hand versions filtered through the procedures and editorial practices of law reporting.
