Professor Ian Williams

Ian’s research interests are centred on English legal history. He is the editor of the Journal of Legal History and his research was awarded the David Yale prize for an outstanding contribution to the history of the law of England and Wales. Most of his research concerns the early-modern period (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), although he has published on topics from the late-thirteenth century onwards. He is particularly interested in the interaction between legal practice and more theoretical ideas of law and norms, as well as the communication of law (mostly, but not only, through printed and manuscript texts). At present his work focuses on the court of Star Chamber, for which he is editing a volume of seventeenth century law reports and working on a project about the theory and practice of the court as a provider of criminal equity.