Books by Stephen Hewer
For a limited time (16 April 22), Brepols is offering a discount and free shipping on Beyond Excl... more For a limited time (16 April 22), Brepols is offering a discount and free shipping on Beyond Exclusion in Medieval Ireland following the launch of the book at the Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool. Full info is on the flyer, contact Brepols sales at info@brepols.net
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Brepols, 2021
https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/book/10.1484/M.MISCS-EB.5.123379 ;
http://www.brepols.net/Pag... more https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/book/10.1484/M.MISCS-EB.5.123379 ;
http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503594576-1 ;
The notion that, upon the advent of the English in 1167, all Gaelic peoples in Ireland were immediately and ipso facto denied access to the English royal courts has become so widely accepted in popular culture that it is often treated as fact. In this ground-breaking monograph, however, the narrative of absolute ethnic discrimination in thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century English Ireland is for the first time tackled head-on through a thorough re-examination of the Irish plea rolls. Through a forensic study of these records, the author demonstrates not only that there was a great deal of variation in how members of various ethnic groups and women who came before the English royal courts in Ireland were treated, but also that there was a large — and hitherto scarcely noticed — population of Gaels with regular and unimpeded access to English law, and that the intersections between gender/sex and ethnicity have too often been deeply misunderstood or disregarded. A close comparison between the treatment of Gaelic women and men and that of the English of Ireland, together with an in-depth examination of other ethnicities from around the Irish Sea, provide a new understanding of English Ireland in which it is clear that there was not a simple dichotomy between the English and the unfree, but rather that people lived an altogether more complex and nuanced existence.
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Journal Articles by Stephen Hewer
Rechtskultur, 2022
https://doi.org/10.17613/zv7f-8470
By applying translation theories and discourse analysis to th... more https://doi.org/10.17613/zv7f-8470
By applying translation theories and discourse analysis to the study of thirteenth-century English law, it is apparent that some of the terms used in secondary works and printed editions of primary sources are not based on the actual manuscript sources but instead modern biases (intersecting ethnicity and gender). The knock-on effect of this practice is that reference works, such as translation dictionaries, do not provide accurate references regarding these terms. Another crucial effect of the mistranslation of medieval terms is a tendency to assume continuity of the conception and role of certain offices – here, only men as ‘sheriffs’ – over a thousand years. A punctilious re-examination of primary and secondary sources reveals temporal differences (in England) and geographic similarities (with the European Continent) that have been filtered out through ‘Anglo-Saxonism’ and further evidence for medieval women with power.
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Rechtsgeschichte, 2021
http://rg.rg.mpg.de/en/article_id/1407
The study of legal status in 13th-century English Ireland ... more http://rg.rg.mpg.de/en/article_id/1407
The study of legal status in 13th-century English Ireland has suffered from a lack of law-in-action methodology, so many 19th-century assumptions have endured without critique. This article sorts out defensive pleas and petitions from court judgments, and applies decolonial and intersectional feminist methodologies to the terminology regarding the medieval courts and peoples. It defines legal freedom under medieval English law in Ireland and delineates the methods used by the courts to determine legal freedom. A critical, forensic study of the surviving court rolls has revealed that there were several legal identities (generes) allowed to use the English royal courts in Ireland (legally »free«) and intersections with and within these categories. The court rolls also demonstrate that legal identity had different consequences in criminal proceedings than in civil, and that categories such as »the English« or »the Gaels« in medieval Ireland are too broad; the interaction of factors such as identity, freedom or unfreedom, gender, and social status have to be taken into account.
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Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Section C, 2018
Download it at https://doi.org/10.17613/4mx2-ph05 ;
This paper examines two issues: misconcepti... more Download it at https://doi.org/10.17613/4mx2-ph05 ;
This paper examines two issues: misconceptions concerning English law in high medieval Ireland; and the invention and mutation of an exceptio (objection) in court which was based on a fabrication. The plea, or defensive claim, was that the plaintiff in a court case was an unfranchised Gael (Hibernica/Hibernicus) and therefore could not sue a civil writ in the English king’s royal courts in Ireland. This pleading has led some historians to surmise that all Gaels were unfranchised in English Ireland without a personal grant of access from the crown of England. The plea also claimed that only five Gaelic families were allowed to sue in the royal courts. Each time the plea was made, it changed, and after sixty years a defendant claimed that the ancestors of the then current king (Edward III) had granted access to English law only to five Gaelic families. There are many problems with this claim.
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Scottish Historical Review, 2018
Download it at https://doi.org/10.17613/c8gm-r875
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Book Reviews by Stephen Hewer
Speculum, 2023
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Óenach: FMRSI, 2022
https://oenach.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/2021-hewer-pp.-27-32.pdf
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Óenach: FMRSI, 2020
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Calls for Papers/Participants by Stephen Hewer
We are organising a two-day conference on critical editions on 1-2 November 2019 at Trinity Colle... more We are organising a two-day conference on critical editions on 1-2 November 2019 at Trinity College Dublin. This conference centres on critical editions of medieval and early modern texts (for historians and linguists). The conference is offering Conference Bursaries with a value of €50 for an attendee resident in Ireland and €145 each for two attendees who will travel from outside of Ireland. We are particularly seeking applications from postgraduate students interested in the process of making critical editions. For those interested, please submit a one-page cover letter and a CV. The cover letter should include details of the applicant's research and interest in critical editions. Please send applications for bursaries to decodingthepast2019@gmail.com. The deadline for applications is 15 August 2019. Awards will be announced in September.
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The theme for Leeds 2020 is 'Borders'.
Send abstracts to hewers@tcd.ie by 31 August 2019.
See the... more The theme for Leeds 2020 is 'Borders'.
Send abstracts to hewers@tcd.ie by 31 August 2019.
See the CFP for more details.
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Historians have long recognised the problems associated with pervasive ‘grand narratives’ in medi... more Historians have long recognised the problems associated with pervasive ‘grand narratives’ in medieval history. This two-day workshop, to be held in the Medieval History Research Centre in Trinity College, Dublin, on 8-9 June 2017, will allow participants to investigate associated problematic concepts and to explore different approaches to writing medieval history. The small, 15-participant workshop will follow a round-table format, designed to promote collaboration and discussion across traditional geographical and chronological divisions within medieval history. Each session will be led by two ten-minute ‘flash’ papers, delivered by participants. Professor Miri Rubin of Queen Mary, University of London, will act as the workshop’s senior academic respondent, to guide discussion and debate and to draw out common threads across the sessions. Professor Rubin will present the keynote paper on the theme of the workshop on the evening of Thursday 8 June.
PhD students and early-career researchers are invited to submit proposals for a ten-minute ‘flash’ paper and to participate in the workshop. Proposals are welcome from all scholars studying Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages in Europe (including Byzantium), including those from cognate disciplines such as archaeology, art history, or literary studies. Participants are expected to join in the discussion in all sessions, but are asked to propose a paper to fit one of the five following themes:
• The problems of origins
• Histories from the outside
• The problem of continuity
• State-centrism
• Periodisation
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Magazine/Newspaper Articles by Stephen Hewer
History Ireland, 2023
https://www.historyireland.com/sefraid-o-fearghail-and-anghaile-1271-1318/
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RTÉ Brainstorm, 2019
https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2019/1106/1089058-gaels-normans-anglo-saxons-medieval-names/
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History Ireland, Nov 2015
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Journal Issues Edited by Stephen Hewer
Comparative Legal History, 2024
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rclh20/12/1
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Comparative Legal History, 2023
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rclh20/11/2
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Comparative Legal History, 2023
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rclh20/11/1
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Uploads
Books by Stephen Hewer
http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503594576-1 ;
The notion that, upon the advent of the English in 1167, all Gaelic peoples in Ireland were immediately and ipso facto denied access to the English royal courts has become so widely accepted in popular culture that it is often treated as fact. In this ground-breaking monograph, however, the narrative of absolute ethnic discrimination in thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century English Ireland is for the first time tackled head-on through a thorough re-examination of the Irish plea rolls. Through a forensic study of these records, the author demonstrates not only that there was a great deal of variation in how members of various ethnic groups and women who came before the English royal courts in Ireland were treated, but also that there was a large — and hitherto scarcely noticed — population of Gaels with regular and unimpeded access to English law, and that the intersections between gender/sex and ethnicity have too often been deeply misunderstood or disregarded. A close comparison between the treatment of Gaelic women and men and that of the English of Ireland, together with an in-depth examination of other ethnicities from around the Irish Sea, provide a new understanding of English Ireland in which it is clear that there was not a simple dichotomy between the English and the unfree, but rather that people lived an altogether more complex and nuanced existence.
Journal Articles by Stephen Hewer
By applying translation theories and discourse analysis to the study of thirteenth-century English law, it is apparent that some of the terms used in secondary works and printed editions of primary sources are not based on the actual manuscript sources but instead modern biases (intersecting ethnicity and gender). The knock-on effect of this practice is that reference works, such as translation dictionaries, do not provide accurate references regarding these terms. Another crucial effect of the mistranslation of medieval terms is a tendency to assume continuity of the conception and role of certain offices – here, only men as ‘sheriffs’ – over a thousand years. A punctilious re-examination of primary and secondary sources reveals temporal differences (in England) and geographic similarities (with the European Continent) that have been filtered out through ‘Anglo-Saxonism’ and further evidence for medieval women with power.
The study of legal status in 13th-century English Ireland has suffered from a lack of law-in-action methodology, so many 19th-century assumptions have endured without critique. This article sorts out defensive pleas and petitions from court judgments, and applies decolonial and intersectional feminist methodologies to the terminology regarding the medieval courts and peoples. It defines legal freedom under medieval English law in Ireland and delineates the methods used by the courts to determine legal freedom. A critical, forensic study of the surviving court rolls has revealed that there were several legal identities (generes) allowed to use the English royal courts in Ireland (legally »free«) and intersections with and within these categories. The court rolls also demonstrate that legal identity had different consequences in criminal proceedings than in civil, and that categories such as »the English« or »the Gaels« in medieval Ireland are too broad; the interaction of factors such as identity, freedom or unfreedom, gender, and social status have to be taken into account.
This paper examines two issues: misconceptions concerning English law in high medieval Ireland; and the invention and mutation of an exceptio (objection) in court which was based on a fabrication. The plea, or defensive claim, was that the plaintiff in a court case was an unfranchised Gael (Hibernica/Hibernicus) and therefore could not sue a civil writ in the English king’s royal courts in Ireland. This pleading has led some historians to surmise that all Gaels were unfranchised in English Ireland without a personal grant of access from the crown of England. The plea also claimed that only five Gaelic families were allowed to sue in the royal courts. Each time the plea was made, it changed, and after sixty years a defendant claimed that the ancestors of the then current king (Edward III) had granted access to English law only to five Gaelic families. There are many problems with this claim.
Book Reviews by Stephen Hewer
Review of Robin Frame, Plantagenet Ireland (Dublin, 2022)
https://oenach.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/6.-hewer-on-duffy-2017.pdf
Calls for Papers/Participants by Stephen Hewer
Send abstracts to hewers@tcd.ie by 31 August 2019.
See the CFP for more details.
PhD students and early-career researchers are invited to submit proposals for a ten-minute ‘flash’ paper and to participate in the workshop. Proposals are welcome from all scholars studying Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages in Europe (including Byzantium), including those from cognate disciplines such as archaeology, art history, or literary studies. Participants are expected to join in the discussion in all sessions, but are asked to propose a paper to fit one of the five following themes:
• The problems of origins
• Histories from the outside
• The problem of continuity
• State-centrism
• Periodisation
Magazine/Newspaper Articles by Stephen Hewer
Journal Issues Edited by Stephen Hewer
http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503594576-1 ;
The notion that, upon the advent of the English in 1167, all Gaelic peoples in Ireland were immediately and ipso facto denied access to the English royal courts has become so widely accepted in popular culture that it is often treated as fact. In this ground-breaking monograph, however, the narrative of absolute ethnic discrimination in thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century English Ireland is for the first time tackled head-on through a thorough re-examination of the Irish plea rolls. Through a forensic study of these records, the author demonstrates not only that there was a great deal of variation in how members of various ethnic groups and women who came before the English royal courts in Ireland were treated, but also that there was a large — and hitherto scarcely noticed — population of Gaels with regular and unimpeded access to English law, and that the intersections between gender/sex and ethnicity have too often been deeply misunderstood or disregarded. A close comparison between the treatment of Gaelic women and men and that of the English of Ireland, together with an in-depth examination of other ethnicities from around the Irish Sea, provide a new understanding of English Ireland in which it is clear that there was not a simple dichotomy between the English and the unfree, but rather that people lived an altogether more complex and nuanced existence.
By applying translation theories and discourse analysis to the study of thirteenth-century English law, it is apparent that some of the terms used in secondary works and printed editions of primary sources are not based on the actual manuscript sources but instead modern biases (intersecting ethnicity and gender). The knock-on effect of this practice is that reference works, such as translation dictionaries, do not provide accurate references regarding these terms. Another crucial effect of the mistranslation of medieval terms is a tendency to assume continuity of the conception and role of certain offices – here, only men as ‘sheriffs’ – over a thousand years. A punctilious re-examination of primary and secondary sources reveals temporal differences (in England) and geographic similarities (with the European Continent) that have been filtered out through ‘Anglo-Saxonism’ and further evidence for medieval women with power.
The study of legal status in 13th-century English Ireland has suffered from a lack of law-in-action methodology, so many 19th-century assumptions have endured without critique. This article sorts out defensive pleas and petitions from court judgments, and applies decolonial and intersectional feminist methodologies to the terminology regarding the medieval courts and peoples. It defines legal freedom under medieval English law in Ireland and delineates the methods used by the courts to determine legal freedom. A critical, forensic study of the surviving court rolls has revealed that there were several legal identities (generes) allowed to use the English royal courts in Ireland (legally »free«) and intersections with and within these categories. The court rolls also demonstrate that legal identity had different consequences in criminal proceedings than in civil, and that categories such as »the English« or »the Gaels« in medieval Ireland are too broad; the interaction of factors such as identity, freedom or unfreedom, gender, and social status have to be taken into account.
This paper examines two issues: misconceptions concerning English law in high medieval Ireland; and the invention and mutation of an exceptio (objection) in court which was based on a fabrication. The plea, or defensive claim, was that the plaintiff in a court case was an unfranchised Gael (Hibernica/Hibernicus) and therefore could not sue a civil writ in the English king’s royal courts in Ireland. This pleading has led some historians to surmise that all Gaels were unfranchised in English Ireland without a personal grant of access from the crown of England. The plea also claimed that only five Gaelic families were allowed to sue in the royal courts. Each time the plea was made, it changed, and after sixty years a defendant claimed that the ancestors of the then current king (Edward III) had granted access to English law only to five Gaelic families. There are many problems with this claim.
Review of Robin Frame, Plantagenet Ireland (Dublin, 2022)
https://oenach.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/6.-hewer-on-duffy-2017.pdf
Send abstracts to hewers@tcd.ie by 31 August 2019.
See the CFP for more details.
PhD students and early-career researchers are invited to submit proposals for a ten-minute ‘flash’ paper and to participate in the workshop. Proposals are welcome from all scholars studying Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages in Europe (including Byzantium), including those from cognate disciplines such as archaeology, art history, or literary studies. Participants are expected to join in the discussion in all sessions, but are asked to propose a paper to fit one of the five following themes:
• The problems of origins
• Histories from the outside
• The problem of continuity
• State-centrism
• Periodisation