Informal Justice in England and Wales, 1760-1914: The Courts of Popular Opinion provides a broad view of popular judicial practices, their basis in folklore, and the links between punitive and festive activities during this period. Stephen Banks focuses on “those occasions upon which groups acted openly, publicly and unapologetically against wrongdoers” (vii) that were regionally known as “skimmingtons,” “ceffyl prens,” and judicial “ridings.” These activities are often categorized as “rough music” due to the raucous noisemaking that accompanied them as part of the shame-inducing visibility of the rituals.

Chapter 1 establishes the general forms and uses of informal justice, linking it with festive practices and with official “processional punishments.” Chapter 2 covers the relationships between those empowered to judge others and the community that they judged, including the impact of “local patriotism” and “otherness” on choosing which individuals were more likely to be punished for transgressions. Chapter 3 considers different forms of rough music as both punitive activities and as popular entertainment. Banks discusses the retribution exacted upon people with power when they did not play their expected roles in supporting traditional festivals (as through contributing money, food, or drink). He also examines the real physical, social, and psychological harm that some victims of rough music endured.

Chapters 4, 5, and 6 deal with the applications of informal justice to police sexual, gender, and social norms, as well as to defend economic or political matters that the community held to be traditional rights. Banks shows that, during the economic and social upheavals of the early modern period, such narratives of traditional practices and ancient rights coalesced, justifying both the causes of the villagers and their right to enforce community standards through public shaming. Chapter 7 examines economic independence and social traits that enabled “resistive communities” to use traditions of informal justice to empower themselves against external threats and powerful individuals. Chapter 8 traces the ways that elites encouraged and orchestrated public demonstrations in the nineteenth century as displays of opposition against political targets. It details how many calendar customs were incorporated into official celebrations over time, and how regulations on public gatherings slowly ended most unsanctioned displays of informal justice.

While much of this study involves the enforcement of social norms, the focus on gender is particularly interesting as both a locus of normative behavior and transgression, and as a symbolic resource in constructing the rituals. Banks shows that informal justice was generally organized and enacted by young men, yet women, or men dressed as women, had a particularly strong role in punishing and shaming the victims of these rituals. Many were directed at emasculating submissive husbands and punishing assertive wives, but others shamed abusive husbands and men who committed sexual assaults or adultery. Banks expresses doubt that, given the occasional nature of rough music, especially from the mid-nineteenth century on, much substantial benefit came to abused women as a result of informal justice.

Stephen Banks traces developments in informal justice and its discourse over time, linking it to legal mechanisms of the medieval and early modern periods while also identifying elements that made rough music an appealing and effective means of maintaining social control well into the modern era. However, he notes that informal justice was applied sporadically, often aligning with seasonal festivals, undermining its effectiveness as a consistent social corrective. While he analyzes the ways that tradition was mobilized, adapted, and even invented to support the extra-legal practices of villagers upholding what they understood to be common right, he shows respect for the people who deeply held and were served by these beliefs. He also makes the point that a similar process was employed by the official English judiciary to establish the legitimacy of common law as rooted in “ancient custom.” At the same time, Banks does not avoid issues of intolerance and cruelty in considering the various ways that “otherness” was conferred on individuals—through their geographic or religious origins, or through acts or traits that placed them outside community norms—making them more vulnerable to attack for transgressions that might otherwise be ignored. In writing on a topic that easily lends itself to unsympathetic characterizations of working-class people, Banks avoids supporting historical generalizations about popular ignorance and mindless violence without idealizing his subject. His nuanced examination of judicial folklore through the practice of informal justice makes this book a well-crafted and humane treatment of a potentially difficult topic.

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[Review length: 731 words • Review posted on September 27, 2016]