Adam B. Forsyth
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adambforsyth.bsky.social
Adam B. Forsyth
@adambforsyth.bsky.social
PhD student at Cambridge. I study the legal, political, ecclesiastical, & intellectual history of England in the 16th & 17th centuries, & history of the book! Views strictly my own.

独立之精神,自由之思想

www.hist.cam.ac.uk/people/adam-b-forsyth
A blithely reductive portrait of the complex experiences and beliefs of many individual people?

Yes! But we are having fun.
October 26, 2025 at 10:05 AM
‘Oh no! The pursuivant has alerted the town bailiffs to your Marian icons, and he is coming to arrest you with a precept of attachment!

Attempt escape? (This will risk contumacy; but if successful, +5 to your Recusancy Creds.) Y/N?’
October 26, 2025 at 1:30 AM
‘Oh no! The defendant’s proctor has filed exceptions against your witnesses!’

‘But his Latin is faulty—complain to Diocesan Chancellor?

(This will cost you 4 charisma.) Yes/No?’
October 26, 2025 at 1:30 AM
‘Oh no! Your suit in the diocesan consistory has failed!’

‘REGISTRAR: Pay my Reverend Lord’s tabellion or be made excommunicate!’

‘Seek writ of prohibition? Yes or No?’
October 26, 2025 at 1:30 AM
I don’t talk about it here, but in addition to the considerations about arrest, there is also another story about powers of search that I intend to write at some point
October 3, 2025 at 9:22 AM
If anyone would like to know a bit more about the earlier history of this issue: I wrote something about it…
For those curious about the early development of ideas regarding the rule of law, personal liberty, remedies for wrongful imprisonment (such as habeas corpus), and the relationship between law and sovereign power—among many other things—it may be of interest. @historicaljnl.bsky.social
October 3, 2025 at 9:22 AM
(also if people want to know more about where their rights and legal ideas came from: please join us in learning about the very boring technical things out of which they emerged! i promise it’s worth stomaching the confusing, tedious parts!)
October 3, 2025 at 9:08 AM
re: development of formative Elizabethan views about this issue, see pinned skeet?
October 3, 2025 at 9:08 AM
I am not sure I would even say that—he, too, was rather authoritarian!
September 25, 2025 at 10:31 AM
For a few examples see e.g. here: varieng.helsinki.fi/series/volum...
Sixteenth-century English Books in the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg) - Galina Pitulko
varieng.helsinki.fi
July 17, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Anecdotally, the library of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg did often stamp title pages as well, but frequently to verso rather than recto.
July 17, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Albeit my dauwtre hathe vowched that hee were of a comely figure & a sound & true protestant, the maidservaunte hathe confided unto me that she hath discoueree a straunge booke secreted withyn his beddchambre callid the Racovian catechisme — the wch is fill’d with Ariane blaspheminges & cavils
July 2, 2025 at 1:08 PM