TY - BOOK ID - 103601983 TI - Vernacular law : writing and the reinvention of customary law in Medieval France PY - 2023 SN - 9781009217897 9781009217880 1009217879 1009217887 1009217895 1009217909 1009217917 PB - Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, DB - UniCat KW - Customary law KW - History KW - Customs (Law) KW - Folk law KW - Law, Primitive KW - Traditional law KW - Usage and custom (Law) KW - Social norms KW - Common law KW - Time immemorial (Law) KW - Coutumes UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:103601983 AB - Custom was fundamental to medieval legal practice. Whether in a property dispute or a trial for murder, the aggrieved and accused would go to lay court where cases were resolved according to custom. What custom meant, however, went through a radical shift in the medieval period. Between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, custom went from being a largely oral and performed practice to one that was also conceptualized in writing. Based on French lawbooks known as coutumiers, Ada Maria Kuskowski traces the repercussions this transformation - in the form of custom from unwritten to written and in the language of law from elite Latin to common vernacular - had on the cultural world of law. Vernacular Law offers a new understanding of the formation of a new field of knowledge: authors combined ideas, experience and critical thought to write lawbooks that made disparate customs into the field known as customary law. ER -