Introduction

What can a study of early modern conscience reveal about human and non-human intelligences? This introductory chapter charts the complex and overlapping history of Western conceptualisations of conscience from the 1200s to the 1600s, including the rise of a bipartite scholastic conscience assessed through syllogistic reasoning; the court of Chancery’s development into a court of conscience and the subsequent annexing of conscience to the common law; the distinct strands of Catholic and English Protestant systems of casuistry; and the Lutheran project of liberating conscience. This chapter argues that understanding the mix of algorithms guiding the reckoning and influencing the judgement of early modern conscience is not only key to unravelling puzzling cruxes of the dramatic literary canon, but also provides insight into the nature of our own human intelligence.