| Dark Speech: The Performance of Law in Early Ireland Contributor(s): Stacey, Robin Chapman (Author) |
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ISBN: 081223989X ISBN-13: 9780812239898 Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press OUR PRICE: $71.20 Product Type: Hardcover Published: March 2007 Annotation: What does it mean to talk about law as theater, to speak about the "performance" of transactions as mundane as the sale of a pig or as agonizing as the receiving of compensation for a dead kinsman? In "Dark Speech," Robin Chapman Stacey explores such questions by examining the interaction between performance and law in Ireland between the seventh and ninth centuries.Exposing the inner workings of the Irish legal system, Stacey examines the manner in which publicly enacted words and silences were used to construct legal and political relationships in a society where traditional hierarchies were very much in flux.Law in early Ireland was a verbal art, grounded as much in aesthetics as in the enforcement of communal norms. In contrast with modern law, no sharp distinction existed between art and politics. Visualizing legal events through the lens of procedure helps readers recognize the creative, fluid, and inherently risky nature of the event.While many historians have long realized the mnemonic value of legal drama to the small, principally nonliterate societies of the early Middle Ages, Stacey argues that the appeal to social memory is but one aspect of the role played by performance in early law. In fact, legal performance (like other more easily recognized forms of verbal art) created and transformed as much as it recorded. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Law | Legal History - History | Europe - Medieval - History | Europe - Ireland |
| Dewey: 349.415 |
| LCCN: 2006050919 |
| Series: Middle Ages |
| Physical Information: 1.3" H x 6.3" W x 9.3" (1.65 lbs) 368 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - Medieval (500-1453) - Cultural Region - Ireland |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: What does it mean to talk about law as theater, to speak about the performance of transactions as mundane as the sale of a pig or as agonizing as receiving compensation for a dead kinsman? In Dark Speech, Robin Chapman Stacey explores such questions by examining the interaction between performance and law in Ireland between the seventh and ninth centuries. Exposing the inner workings of the Irish legal system, Stacey examines the manner in which publicly enacted words and silences were used to construct legal and political relationships in a society where traditional hierarchies were very much in flux. Law in early Ireland was a verbal art, grounded as much in aesthetics as in the enforcement of communal norms. In contrast with modern law, no sharp distinction existed between art and politics. Visualizing legal events through the lens of procedure, Stacey helps readers recognize the creative, fluid, and inherently risky nature of these same events. While many historians have long realized the mnemonic value of legal drama to the small, principally nonliterate societies of the early Middle Ages, Stacey argues that the appeal to social memory is but one aspect of the role played by performance in early law. In fact, legal performance (like other more easily recognized forms of verbal art) created and transformed as much as it recorded. |