Liberty Against the Law

By Christopher Hill

In 17th-century England, the law was not an instrument of justice – it was an instrument of oppression. So argues Christopher Hill in this classic study. The enclosures, loss of many traditional rights and draconian punishments for minor transgressions changed the lives of the peasantry and created a landless class of wage labourers. Hill explores the immense social changes that occurred and the expressions of liberty against the law through, for example, the literary culture of the times and the hero-worship of the outlaw. As well as short chapters on gypsies and vagabonds, Hill has much to say about class, religion and the shift away from the importance of the church after the Reformation.