Legal History Commons^™

Rabbi Lamm, The Fifth Amendment, And Comparative Jewish Law, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

Rabbi Norman Lamm’s 1956 article, “The Fifth Amendment and Its Equivalent in the Halakha,” provides important lessons for scholarship in both Jewish and American law. Sixty-five years after it was published, the article remains, in many ways, a model for interdisciplinary and comparative study of Jewish law, drawing upon sources in the Jewish legal tradition, American legal history, and modern psychology. In so doing, the article proves faithful to each discipline on its own terms, producing insights that illuminate all three disciplines while respecting the internal logic within each one. In addition to many other distinctions, since its initial publication, …

The Letter Of Richard Wyche: An Interrogation Narrative, Christopher G. Bradley

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This is a translation, with introduction, of the Letter of Richard Wyche—one of only two heresy interrogation narratives from medieval England written from the perspective of the accused heretic.

The Letter is an autobiographical account of Richard Wyche’s interrogation, in 1402-1403, at the hands of church officials. Wyche originally composed the Letter in (Middle) English but it survives only in a Latin translation, alongside other forbidden texts in a manuscript now in Prague. Wyche wrote and covertly sent away this Letter to an audience of intimates sympathetic to the cause (the so-called Wycliffite or Lollard heresy) before his interrogations ended. …

The Protestant Revolutions And Western Law, William Ewald

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Sect Apart: A History Of The Legal Troubles Of The Shakers, Ralph Michael Stein

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article explores the Shaker experience in nineteenth century America, particularly their relationship to legislative bodies and courts and analyzes the reasons underlying the persistent, selective, official persecution of this group.