The criminal law has often been seen as central to the rule of the 18th century landed elite. Within detailed studies of every stage of the criminal process this volume explores key issues such as who used the law, for what purposes and with what effects It then challenges the view that the law was primarily the instrument of a small elite, portraying it instead as an arena of struggle, negotiation and compromise used by many different social groups. The criminal justice system may have sometimes been vulnerable to power but it was also useful in limiting it.

Christians have been drawn to monastic life nearly as long as Christianity has existed. Dedicating themselves to prayer, meditation, and good works, men and women in many diverse times and places have been willing to abstain from marriage, sexual relations, and personal ownership to serve God singlemindedly. In this overview of the Latin tradition, Peter King, emeritus senior lecturer of medieval history at Saint Andrew's University, leads readers quickly but deftly along the rugged monastic road from late antique Egypt to the present day, passing through spectacular expansion in medieval...

Buridan was a brilliant logician in an age of brilliant logicians, sensitive to formal and philosophical considerations. There is a need for critical editions and accurate translations of his works, for his philosophical voice speaks directly across the ages to problems of concern to analytic philosophers today. But his idiom is unfamiliar, so editions and trans- lations alone will not bridge the gap of centuries. I have tried to make Buridan accessible to philosophers and logicians today by the introduc- tory essay, in which I survey Buridan's philosophy of logic. Several problems which...