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Picture BL MS Harley 2531 (BL have fair use policy)

With a canon drawn from Roman epic and satire, the medieval grammar classroom taught not only the art of Latin composition but also the tenets of classical political theory, interweaving lessons in poetic license alongside discussions of liberty, tyranny, and rule of law. For writers such as John of Salisbury and Alain de Lille, grammatical order served as the foundation of political order, its discipline the necessary first step in the governance of self and others. Instances of grammatical “disorder” likewise served to gloss transgressions both legal and bodily. This talk examines how pedagogical instruction in Latin literature helped define the lineaments of legal personhood—what it meant to exercise privilege and franchise within the law as well as what it meant to lack status under the law. This collocation of the legal and grammatical, forged in the medieval classroom, has in turn had a long constitutional afterlife, shaping contemporary debates over corporate personhood and executive privilege.

Event details

Council Room
Strand Campus
Strand, London, WC2R 2LS