Shakespeare's World | Law and Legal Institutions
Shakespeare's familiarity with legal vocabulary has been the subject of several books and much comment. It has led some writers to suppose that he must have had some legal education; and in truth it would not be altogether surprising to find that, like so many of the minor gentry, he had once heard the chimes at midnight in one of the Inns of Chancery. Yet the assumption that only men with legal training knew anything about the law is anachronistic. There were few Elizabethans or Jacobeans who stayed out of law courts. Writs and plaints, latitats and subpoenas, citations and presentments...
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