Law and Society in Puritan Massachusetts: Essex County, 1629-1692

Studies in Legal History

by David Thomas Konig

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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241 pages, Hardcover

First published October 26, 1979

About the author

David Konig is a member of the Law faculty after taking emeritus status as Professor of History. In his continuing position as an Adjunct Professor of Law, he directs doctoral dissertations in comparative law for the Law School’s JSD program. His academic career has been guided by the conviction that a great university must have a great law school at its intellectual center, generating interdisciplinary research into social and economic issues that can inform and guide policy, protect individual liberties, and achieve justice. Trained as a historian, he is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in Anglo-American legal history, with a focus on property law, the Second Amendment, and the law of freedom and slavery. He is a leading authority on Thomas Jefferson and the development of law in colonial, Revolutionary, and early national America. The author or editor of several books and numerous articles, Professor Konig has served as an expert witness or consultant in cases concerning property rights before the Supreme Court of the United States, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. In addition, he has contributed to amicus briefs in Second Amendment cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. A former Senior Research Fellow for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, he co-directed the restoration of a colonial-era courthouse and developed curatorial and educational materials for programs that are seen by thousands yearly. Prof. Konig has consulted on editorial projects to preserve and edit papers of the Salem witchcraft trials as well as student notebooks at the nation’s first law school in Litchfield, Connecticut. He is among the nation’s leading authorities on the formative years of American law and has edited the legal papers of Thomas Jefferson for The Papers of Thomas Jefferson and is completing a book on Jefferson’s legal thought and practice. Professor Konig also is the co-editor and author of a book on the Dred Scott case, examining race and the law from historical and contemporary perspectives. He was part of the team that launched the Missouri Freedom Suits project that has inspired books and articles that have opened a new frontier in the history of the struggle for civil rights. Named an honorary Corresponding Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, he has served on numerous prize committees and editorial boards in legal scholarship and has been elected to the Board of Directors of the American Society for Legal History.

Reviews

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-researched and beautifully-written monograph that traces the transition from communalism to legalism in Essex County, Massachusetts. Konig pays careful attention to those who resisted this transition (and were, in some cases, tried as witches and--in the case of Salem Village--executed when they failed to acknowledge the supremacy of a disorganized court system that was attempting to maintain order in the wake of the Dominion of New England's collapse).

[Shauna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book written for law students, and I am not a law student. So, it literally took me almost a year to slowly crawl my way through it. It is not a big book, but it is packed with information. Really good footnotes and sources. As a colonial period fanatic, it made me really happy and painted a very specific and detailed picture of one particular county in the colonies. A lot of good information on the changes in law and order as the settlements grew and developed, as people began to run out of space and had to learn to deal with each other. The eventual "secularization" of law, moving out of the church and into the courtroom. Also really good inside info on the nature of witch trials and the influence of Increase and Cotton Mather.

A little bit of a dry read, but very enjoyable for patient history buffs.