Law and Society in Puritan Massachusetts

Essex County, 1629-1692

By David Thomas Konig

241 pp., 6 x 9, bibl., index

  • Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-4081-8
    Published: January 1981
  • E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-0-8078-6343-5
    Published: January 2004
  • E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-7165-7
    Published: January 2004

Studies in Legal History

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Distinguished by the critical value it assigns to law in Puritan society, this study describes precisely how the Massachusetts legal system differed from England's and how equity and an adapted common law became so useful to ordinary individuals. The author discovers that law gradually replaced religion and communalism as the source of social stability, and he gives a new interpretation to the witchcraft prosecutions of 1692.

Originally published 1979.

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