The Culture of Equity in Early Modern England

Description

Elizabeth and James, Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare, Bacon and Ellesmere, Perkins and Laud, Milton and Hobbes-this begins a list of early modern luminaries who write on 'equity'. In this study Mark Fortier addresses the concept of equity from early in the sixteenth century until 1660, drawing on the work of lawyers, jurists, politicians, kings and parliamentarians, theologians and divines,... Read more

Elizabeth and James, Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare, Bacon and Ellesmere, Perkins and Laud, Milton and Hobbes-this begins a list of early modern luminaries who write on 'equity'. In this study Mark Fortier addresses the concept of equity from early in the sixteenth century until 1660, drawing on the work of lawyers, jurists, politicians, kings and parliamentarians, theologians and divines, poets, dramatists, colonists and imperialists, radicals, royalists, and those who argue on gender issues. He examines how writers in all these groups make use of the word equity and its attendant notions. Equity, he argues, is a powerful concept in the period; he analyses how notions of equity play a prominent part in discourses that have or seek to have influence on major social conflicts and issues in early modern England. Fortier here maps the actual and extensive presence of equity in the intellectual life of early modern England. In so doing, he reveals how equity itself acts as an umbrella term for a wide array of ideas, which defeats any attempt to limit narrowly the meaning of the term. He argues instead that there is in early modern England a distinct and striking culture of equity characterized and strengthened by the diversity of its genealogy and its applications. This culture manifests itself, inter alia, in the following major ways: as a basic component, grounded in the old and new testaments, of a model for Christian society; as the justification for a justice system over and above the common law; as an imperative for royal prerogative; as a free ranging subject for poetry and drama; as a nascent grounding for broadly cast social justice; as a rallying cry for revolution and individual rights and freedoms. Working from an empirical account of the many meanings of equity over time, the author moves from a historical understanding of equity to a theorization of equity in its multiplicity. A profoundly literary study, this book also touches on matters of legal an Read less

Author(s)

Biography

Mark Fortier is Director, School of English and Theatre Studies, University of Guelph, Canada. He is the author of Theory/Theatre: an Introduction and co-editor of Adaptations of Shakespeare and Royal Subjects: Essays on the Writings of James VI and I. He has a law degree from the University of Toronto, Canada.

Critics' Reviews

'Although Fortier's well-conceived and well-written study ends at the Restoration, it will also be useful to those working in the period after 1660. Especially valuable for understanding aspects of this later period is Fortier's treatment of the interconnectedness of concepts of equity and notions of conscience. Anyone who has pondered Quakers' defenses of the legality of their actions in the Restoration period, for example, may leave Fortier's study with a new appreciation for the sophisticated rhetorical strategies that many of those writings exhibit.' Renaissance Quarterly

The Culture of Equity in Early Modern England

Description

Table of Contents

Author(s)

Biography

Critics' Reviews

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