This chapter examines the kinds of legal procedure adopted by various ancient legal systems to conduct legal proceedings in a court. The areas covered include the constitution of courts, preliminary court proceedings, valid evidence, presentation and evaluation of evidence, and the final verdict, including the possibility of appeals. Discussions include judges and court personnel, the physical space of courts, distinctions between civil and criminal cases, plaint and plea, sureties, and legal representation. Under evidence there is examination of witnesses, documents, oaths, ordeals, torture for evidentiary purposes, and forensic investigation, and punishment for perjury. Once a verdict is reached by the court, there are issues relating to the recording and the enforcement of the verdict. There is wide diversity in the legal procedure recorded in the sources from different legal traditions. Some deal with the topic explicitly, while in others we have to deduce the procedure from material on court cases.

Chapter 3 explains the development of the court and society of Weimar, from the strategic decisions taken by Anna Amalia during her regency to the influence of her son, Carl August. The chapter considers the different forms of sociability that were cultivated, alongside the roles of particular institutions in the life of Weimar, above all the theatre and the university at nearby Jena. It addresses the paradox of a society that was at once conservative and progressive, a tension which was also reflected in Goethe’s own career in the town.

The Court of Justice comprises two courts, the Court of Justice and the General Court. The most high-profile task of the latter relates to individuals coming before it seeking judicial review of EU Institutions. This chapter focuses on one procedure, the preliminary reference procedure, whereby national courts refer questions of EU law to the Court of Justice where these are necessary to decide disputes before the former. The Court of Justice has recrafted this procedure to establish a judicial order in which it is the apex court, with all courts having an unfettered and immediate right of reference to it. This judicial order does four things: develops EU law, secures the judicial review of EU Institutions, protects the uniformity of EU law and upholds the independence of the judiciary within EU States. Within this order, national courts against whose decisions there is no remedy must refer, as must all courts who assess that an EU measure is invalid. Other courts have a discretion to refer, with this discretion extending to all courts where a materially identically dispute has decided the point of law in question or the act is so clear it does not require interpretation.

We appraise Alexander’s court. We ask what constituted a ‘court’, as well as considering problems with assessing Alexander’s and those of the earlier Macedonian kings. A brief bibliographic survey follows, with salient literature about the court and institutions, Macedonian prosopography, and related topics. We then examine elite offices, specifically the Hetairoi or Companions, the Royal Pages or King’s Boys, the Royal Bodyguard, and specialized army units populated by the elite, such as the Royal Hypaspists. Finally, we consider two institutions exploited by the kings to engage with the Companions and read their mood: the royal symposium and the royal hunt.

We consider changes (Persianizing one) that Alexander made to his court from mid-330 BCE onwards, as well as opposition to it (and him) in the form of conspiracies and other clashes. Discussion is framed by a brief look at changes introduced by previous kings, as well as at new evidence from archaeology in north Greece that alters our understanding of early Macedon. It also takes into account the Greco-Roman literary topoi that overlay our sources, particularly with regard to major conspiracies, conflict, and the ‘mutiny’ at Opis – all in an effort to excavate the original underlying Macedonian perspective, insofar as we can.

Chapter 7 turns to the recipients of petitions for royal justice and their initiation of litigation. The chapter begins by weighing up the evidence for direct royal involvement in these judicial processes, with particular attention paid to a set of documents signed by Henry VII and Henry VIII personally. Otherwise, based on a survey of the signatures and annotations scattered across the Court of Requests’ early Tudor archive, this chapter identifies the men who delivered justice in this tribunal day to day. Mapping onto the evolutionary trajectory set out in Chapter 3, the overall impression is of transition from a diverse and changeable group of bill handlers within the royal household under Henry VII, followed by a spell in which the household clergy oversaw all business in Requests, and culminating in a smaller quorum of legally trained judges and Masters of Requests by the end of the period. The chapter then spells out the procedures followed once a petition was in the hands of this frontline personnel, and the measures they took to preserve the traditional prioritisation of the poor litigant.

Between the no-fault divorce revolution and various court rulings classifying sexual behavior between two adults as a private, intimate matter, some scholars have noted a shift away from traditional morality around sex in conjugal, cohabiting, and dating relationships in family law. The act of sex in a romantic relationship is often perceived as one’s complete liberty without bounds. Many underrate the legal consequences attached to their sexual behavior. However, sex is still the defining consideration that creates legal recognition of a romantic relationship between two people. It creates legal duties to each other and any minor involved in the partnership, irrespective of biological ties, in a relational parentage era. Past and recent court rulings, including rulings from nonmarital, intimate partner violence, and parentage cases, are provided as examples to recount the legal meaning of the act of sex.

Chapter 3 investigates the French nationality decrees promulgated in 1930 and 1936, which recognized the claims métis people had been making for decades: they were French and entitled to French legal status. These new legal pathways to French citizenship and demarcations of parameters of belonging were tied to concepts of how race and multiracial identity mapped onto French legal status. The decrees codified multiracial people as a specific category in French colonial thought and society, but within the context of how multiracial people themselves claimed multiracial selfhoods. The claims of métis people who petitioned for citizenship deepened the debates about race and racial identity and changed the very idea of Frenchness. The burden of proof on petitioners hinged on questions of paternity and French cultural competency. However, maternal kin and African communities played an essential role in the legal process. Métis obtainment of French citizenship was consequential for hierarchies of status within African societies. At the same time, it both contested and created hierarchies of social and legal status and privilege based on changing racial thought.

Forensic psychiatry is a medical discipline, developed from the foundations of the asylum era, which focuses on the assessment and treatment of offenders with mental disorders. The complexity of the patient cohort is arguable reflected in the complexity of their clinical pathways, which necessitates some understanding of the legal system that for most patients, works in parallel to that of health and social care. In this chapter, we briefly review the historical context through which modern forensic psychiatry has emerged within England and Wales. This includes some high-profile individual cases that led to the development of concepts such as fitness to plead and the psychiatric defence of not guilty by reason of insanity. We then provide an outline of how inpatient secure services are structured, the relevant criminal sections of the Mental Health Act at each stage of the trial process and some of the challenges associated with managing this complex cohort of individuals.

This scene-setting chapter charts out the challenges Europe’s monarchies had to face in the wake of the French Revolution and the key means they employed to achieve their survival – among them an alliance with nationalism and imperialism, constitutional development and public relations techniques. It also introduces royal heirs as individual agents – and the process of succession more widely – as an essential part of this political arsenal. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the main contexts within which the lives and functions of a nineteenth-century heir had to unfold: the constitution, the royal family, the public sphere and the court.