Dr Jack Newman

Dr Jack Newman is the project lead for the Victoria County History Project ‘The Making of Maidstone’ which is producing a book on the history of Maidstone c. 1549-1660. Previously he was the lead on a Leverhulme funded project at the Antwerp Centre for Digital Humanities and Literary criticism and the Royal Historical Society’s Centenary Fellow. His doctoral thesis explored attitudes towards corruption in fourteenth century England and he has published on digital approaches to medieval records.

About the event

How can literary texts illuminate how justice, law, and royal power were understood in early fourteenth-century England? This talk will explore the works of a single individual, based in Ludlow, Herefordshire, who compiled the largest surviving collection of political texts from the first half of fourteenth-century England. Around seven hundred years ago, this scribe penned a two-line lament that feels startlingly modern: ‘Faith is rare, law dies, fraud lives, and love lies buried’. Written in the aftermath of the impromptu execution of Edward II’s cousin, Thomas of Lancaster, this verse captures a moment when faith in royal justice faltered.

The songs and poems preserved in the Harley Scribe’s works, some of which have been in print for nearly two centuries, are filled with political satire, complaint, and moral reflection. However, previous readings have often failed to appreciate their particular connection to the legal and political contexts of early fourteenth-century England. This talk reinterprets these works through the lens of contemporary political and legal evidence, showing how they reveal royal justice as a living ideal that could be betrayed or restored through words, memory, and performance.