Learning the ‘New Law of the Star Chamber’: Legal Education and Legal Literature in Early-Stuart England

How did early-modern lawyers learn about the law and practice of courts which were under-served in printed legal literature? This article investigates this question through an examination of the dissemination of professional knowledge about the court of Star Chamber. It considers the role of the readings in the Inns of Court, as well as the extensive circulation of manuscript treatises about the court and law reports of cases heard in the court