The University of Reading hosts the 22nd British Legal History Conference July 8-11, 2015. In celebration of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta the theme of the conference is Law: Challenges to Authority and the Recognition of Rights.
While different forms and ideas of authority have shaped law historically, law has also been moulded by, and influenced, challenges to authority brought to assert and seek recognition of rights. Magna Carta resulted from one such challenge, but challenges to social, economic, political and doctrinal authorities existed before Magna Carta and have continued to occur since. The British Legal History Conference 2015 is concerned to explore how law, both public and private, has in different epochs been shaped by, and shaped, challenges to authority brought to seek the recognition of rights. It includes papers which examine how law, legal processes and legal actors have developed in response to such challenges to authority, and indeed how an understanding of the law has itself often influenced these challenges.
