Star Chamber Stories

by G.R. Elton

These stories from the Star Chamber papers, first published in 1958, reveal the real, and sometimes comic, side of the functioning of the Star Chamber - an English court of Law from the Middle Ages, which was set up to ensure the fair enforcement of law against prominent people who were too powerful to be convicted by ordinary courts. These stories are valuable both for the ‘real life’ detail they bring to a historical concept, and for the light they throw on accepted historical generalizations.

252 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton FBA (born Gottfried Rudolf Otto Ehrenberg) was a German-born British political and constitutional historian, specialising in the Tudor period. He taught at Clare College, Cambridge, and was the Regius Professor of Modern History there from 1983 to 1988.

An strong advocate of the primacy of political and administrative history, Elton was the pre-eminent Tudor historian of his day. He also made very significant contributions to the then current debate on the philosophy of historical practice, as well as having a powerful effect on the profession through, among other things, his presidency of the Royal Historical Society.