Oaths, Credibility and the Legal Process in Early Modern England: Part One

Abstract

SUMMARYThis article attempts to broaden our understanding of the early modern English legal evidentiary environment by examining oath-taking both in and out of the legal environment. Part One critically examines George Fisher's argument about the centrality of oath-taking and the late arrival of credibility concerns in the common law courts. It attempts to show how legal concerns with prosecution and witness credibility interacted with oath-taking by witnesses, jurors and grand-jurors. It suggests that the frequent expression of credibility concerns at the time undermines Fisher's view that oath-takers were almost uniformly believed to be truth-tellers. Part Two, which will appear in the summer issue of Law & Humanities in 2013, extends the argument by examining witness credibility in non legal environments and the role of the rhetorical tradition in shaping credibility criteria. It will examine how witness testimony given under oath interacted with the testimony of character witnesses, expert witnesses and circumstantial evidence and will show how concerns with merciful verdicts and perjury interacted with both credibility and oath related beliefs and practices. It concludes that it is necessary to consider the totality, complexity and contradictions that characterised an early modern English evidentiary environment in which oaths and credibility concerns about oathtakers coexisted.