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7 - The Transformation of Legal Culture
Craig Muldrew, University of Cambridge
Book:

The Capitalist Self

Published online:

12 October 2025

Print publication:

30 October 2025, pp 279-302
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Summary

This chapter moves back to institutions to deal with the general decline in litigation over failed credit that began around 1690, and argues it came about largely because of changes in credit networks. It demonstrates how attorneys’ business moved away from litigation to conveyancing, and how they profited by becoming local credit. It also looks at the increasing use of local summary justice in the Courts of Requests in London, Bristol, and Newcastle to enforce the small debts of poor consumers, as well as the growing use of arrest and imprisonment in the common law courts. While the use of paper currency provided greater liquidity in credit markets, and reduced the overall level of litigation massively, those debtors who went broke began to be treated in a much harsher fashion.

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7 - The Transformation of Legal Culture

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7 - The Transformation of Legal Culture

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