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

86 Legal History in the Making
One picture shows Sir John Fielding, the blind half-brother of Henry
Fielding, the novelist, presiding at a pre-trial examination in his Bow
Street chambers. 2 To the extent that it may be accurate, such a picture
surely offers us at the very least an insight into how pre-trial procedure
actually worked in these busy London chambers. For example, we can note
a certain formality in the proceedings, who was present, and so on. More
recently, J.A. Sharpe, a social historian of crime, has published a volume of
illustrations of the social history of crime. They are drawn from the British
Museum's huge collection which was first catalogued by F.G. Stephens and
M.D. George in their Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires. Not only
do these give us a view of the facts about crime and punishment: they also
offer an expression of contemporary political and social opinion about crime
and punishment. 3
European scholars who have been working in this field for some years
have demonstrated a number of uses of iconographical materials, as Mrs.
Becker points out below. I myself draw attention to two. First, there
is the accurate representation of a place or event. Secondly, there may
be a useful representation of the public opinion of the day. We can
learn from both. At the same time we must be cautious. In assessing
the eighteenth-century prints we need to be aware of the emblematic
tradition which culminated in the publication in English in 1709 of Caesar
Ripa's Iconologia* In Ripa we have an authoritative collection of allegorical
figures which explains fully their symbolic meanings. In the eighteenth
century generally an 'emblem' meant any pictorial image with a fixed
symbolic association. So we have Liberty, with her cap and pole. How
often we can see that symbol used to good effect in, for example, the
prints which dealt with the issue of John Wilkes and freedom of the
press. And Justice, with sword and scales, is an ever popular figure. Not
surprisingly, Justice blindfolded or Justice assailed became stock figures in
the repertoire of the printmaker. Then we come to the Devil. I am sorry
to have to report that, in the prints which are of interest to us as legal
historians, the Devil and the Lawyer are often portrayed as being on the
friendliest of terms: indeed, the one may be seen as the agent of the
other. Of course, in England and Wales we developed our own national
stereotypes. Britannia and John Bull became potent symbols of national
pride from the mid eighteenth century. During this early period too there
were other useful symbols. A dog might symbolize fidelity or open access
to the building, for example, a court, in which it was located. It is clear,
2 J.H. Langbein, 'Shaping the Eighteenth Century Criminal Trial: A View from the Ryder Sources',
Univ. Chicago Law Rev., 1 (1983), 1. Cf. J.H. Langbein, 'Illustrations as Legal Historical Sources', Law
School Record, xxix (1983), 13.
3 J.A. Sharpe, Crime and the Law in English Satirical Prints, 1600-1832 (1986).
4 P. Tempest, Iconologia: or Moral Emblems by Caesar Ripa . . . (1709). For an earlier edition used
in the Netherlands see n.37 below.