Appendix CASE ONE - Collection Point® | The Total Digital Asset ...

Chapter 6
An Introduction to Iconographical Studies of Legal
History
I. England and Wales
A.H. Manchester
As historians we are constantly searching for little-used or new sources. Until
quite recently legal historians had made little effective use of the numerous
volumes of nineteenth-century parliamentary papers which tell us so much
about legal matters, despite the work of Holdsworth some years ago and,
more recently, of Radzinowicz. Outside our own field we may note the value
of filmed newsreels and of documentaries to the historian of the modern
period. Simon Schama has demonstrated convincingly how an excellent
narrative history of an earlier period still can be enriched by the lavish
use of contemporary illustrations. 1 To what extent can we legal historians
make good use of such materials in our own field? Can we usefully develop
an iconography of legal history? To what extent does the work of our European
colleagues help us in that inquiry?
Margariet Becker describes below the work of her own Centre for the
Documentation of Legal History and Legal Iconography in Amsterdam
in addition to referring to the work of other European scholars. I am
making a modest start in respect of England and Wales. With the help
of a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council I am seeking
out representations, drawn in the main from the period 1750-1900, of
law courts, law suits, trials, the legal profession and judiciary and forms
of punishment and the like. The representations may be in the form of
paintings, prints, sculptures or photographs. They may exist in their own
right or they may be illustrations in a book. I do not include portraits
of individuals within my aims except in so far as they may illustrate a
more general point. For example, I am interested in a judicial portrait
only if it illustrates, say, judicial dress: the personal likeness of the judge
is of no interest. Such a project is by no means wholly original, even in
the Anglo-American tradition. Some years ago Professor John Langbein
illustrated one of his learned articles on the criminal law by means of
some twelve pictures. They demonstrate very well what I have in mind.
1 S. Schama, Citizens (1989).