Summary The phrase 'Jus Uncommon' summarizes England's claim to independence from Europe, a claim supported by its unique legal system and Elizabethan theatre, and their strong interconnexion. Elizabethan tragedy begins at the Inns of Court. It was no mere coincidence, but a result of the long history of intersecting processes of law, politics, and theatre. This book sets out to contextualize and explore such legal and literary intersections, charting the emergence of Elizabethan legal culture from its various English and European sources over the course of the four hundred years running from Magna Carta to Shakespeare. It encompasses the major strands of legal history and culture that formed the background to Elizabethan political drama, republican tradition, theories of monarchical sovereignty,?European and English theories of?imperium,?pedagogical and rhetorical practices of the Inns of Court,?legal-antiquarian research, parliamentary privilege, and Tudor political pamphleteering. Legal texts, discourses, and social practices constructed a pervasive intellectual culture from which Elizabethan drama - like Shakespeare's - emerged. Shakespeare is not the central object of this study, but he is central to its argument. What he knew about law was what collective memory had stored from centuries past at home and abroad. The issues, characters, themes, theories, and metaphors dramatized by the Elizabethan playwrights followed the way opened at the Inns. Emblematic figures of lawyers-writers and their Senecan patterns paved the way to Gorboduc and to Shakespeare's histories. TABLE OF CONTENTS Editorial Note Introduction : Law or Liberty? Part I. Jus uncommon. Freedom of the State Chapter 1. Dreams of Empire Early Steps to Singularity Clashes of Jurisdictions Sacred Monarchy Chapter 2. England's Mixed Polity English Democrats Good Counsel Model Parliaments Right of Conquest Chapter 3. Rival Law Codes Roman Law The Common Law of the Realm Emergence of the Inns Upward Mobility Part II. Fair Trial. Freedom of Magistrates Chapter 4. Learned Counsel A Display of Legalism The Courtly Muses of Europe Chapter 5. Divorcing Rome King's Conscience King's Printer King's Games Chapter 6. Fortune's Wheels Common Prayers Heretics on Trial 'Something Tawdry'. The Political Pageant 'An Axe or an Acte'. The Execution of Justice Part III. The Conscience of England. Freedom of Speech Chapter 7. The Languages of Law The Legal Nursery Won in Translation Chapter 8. Theatres of Law Dramatic Justice Political Tragedy Chapter 9. Lawyers in Parliament 'Shall Cassandra Bee Punished?' The Liberties of the House Clean and Unclean Money The Lawyer's Glasses of Governance Chapter 10. Kings do but Play Us Lawyers in Resistance A Parliament of Voices Conclusion. 'This Magnificent Theatre of Heaven and Earth' Select Bibliography Index of Acts, Statutes, and Treatises Index of Plays, Poems, Dialogues, and Masques General Index