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About Me

I am a historian of early modern England, between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. I grew up in the historical city of Lincoln before undertaking an undergraduate degree in History and a Master’s degree in Early Modern History at the University of York. I completed my PhD at Newnham College, Cambridge and started a position as Stipendiary Lecturer in Early Modern History at Christ Church in October 2020.

I have recently published research articles on justice-giving within the Tudor royal Council and on the social profiles of litigants approaching the king for judicial remedy. My article on Henry VIII’s stamped signature, personal monarchy, and the delivery of justice was awarded the 2020 Sir John Neale Prize in Early Modern History by the Royal Historical Society and the Institute of Historical Research.

My research concerns the permeation of political culture across late-medieval and early modern England, roughly c.1485 to 1540 or the ‘early-Tudor’ period. For my doctorate I studied the principle and practice of royal justice in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII, principally through a survey of the rich but little-studied records of the Court of Requests. My postdoctoral work will explore the process of ‘Shopping for Justice’ and the expansion of litigation across early modern England, between c.1470 and c.1640.

I am generally interested in the communication of governmental ideals between ordinary people and the authorities; the projection of monarchy to the ‘public’ or ‘public sphere’; the expansion of litigation in early modern England; and the study of petitions and other legal records.

Recent Publications

Key Publications:

(forthcoming, 2021) ‘Signed, Stamped, and Sealed: Delivering Royal Justice in Early Sixteenth-Century England’, Historical Research (awarded the 2020 Sir John Neale Prize in Early Modern History by the RHS and IHR)

‘”Allowable or Not”? John Stokesley, the Court of Requests, and Royal Justice in Sixteenth-Century England’, Historical Research 93, no. 262 (2020), pp. 621-637. 

‘Litigants in the English “Court of Poor Men’s Causes”, or Court of Requests, 1515-1525’, Law & History Review 38, no. 2 (2020), pp. 303-337

‘Conscience and the king’s household clergy in the early Tudor Court of Requests’, The Church and the Law ed. Rosamond McKitterick, Charlotte Methuen, and Andrew Spicer, Studies in Church History 56 (2020), pp. 210-226

 

Other Publications:

‘Seeing Medieval Poverty in the Archives of the Court of Requests’, The Docket 3, no. 1 (March 2020)

‘Review of “Law, Lawyers and Litigants in Early Modern England: Essays in Memory of Christopher W. Brooks (2019)”’, Reviews in History (review no. 2362)

Media Coverage

Social Media

@LFlannigan17

Country Focus

England

Expertise by Geography

British Isles

Expertise by Chronology

Medieval, Pre-17th century, Early Modern

Expertise by Topic

Government, Law, Politics