Sutherland Prize

Criteria

Best article on British legal history published in the previous year.

Amount

$500

Deadline

June 1, 2024

The Sutherland Prize, named in honor of the late Donald W. Sutherland, a distinguished historian of the law of medieval England and a mentor of many students, is awarded annually, on the recommendation of the Sutherland Prize Committee, to the person or persons who wrote the best article on the legal history of Britain and/or the British Empire published in the previous year.

To ensure consideration, authors are invited to nominate an article by sending an electronic copy to committee chair at sutherlandprize@aslh.net. The annual deadline for nominations is by June 1. In keeping with past practice, the committee may also consider eligible articles nominated by the chair.

Committee Members

  • Julia Rudolph, Chair
    North Carolina State University

  • Elizabeth Papp Kamali
    Harvard University

  • Hannah Weiss Muller
    Brandeis University

  • Catherine Evans
    University of Toronto

  • Tom Johnson
    York University

Past Recipients

2023

Jake Stattel

“Legal culture in the Danelaw: a study of III Aethelred,” Anglo/Saxon England, 49 (2022): 163-203

2022

Holly Brewer

“Creating a Common Law of Slavery for England and its New World Empire,” Law and History Review 39, no 4 (November 2021): 765-834.

2022

Elizabeth Papp Kamali

“Tales of the Living Dead: Dealing with Doubt in Medieval English Law,” Speculum 96, no. 2 (April 2021): 367-417.

2021

Sonia Tycko

“The Legality of Prisoner of War Labour in England, 1648-1655” Past and Present 246 (Feb 2020), 35-68.

2021

Priyasha Saksena

“Jousting Over Jurisdiction: Sovereignty and International Law in Late Nineteenth-Century South Asia” Law and History Review 38, no. 2 (May 2020), 409-457.

2020

Simon Newman

“Freedom-Seeking Slaves in England and Scotland, 1700–1780,” The English Historical Review 134, no. 570 (2019).

2020

Honorable mention: Emily Kadens

"Cheating Pays," Columbia Law Review 119 (2019).

2019

Patrick Weil and Nicholas Handler

“Revocation of Citizenship and Rule of Law: How Judicial Review Defeated Britain’s First Denaturalization Regime," Law and History Review 36 (2018).

2019

Honorable Mention: Elizabeth Papp Kamali

“Trial by Ordeal by Jury in Medieval England, or Saints and Sinners in Literature and Law,” in Emotion, Violence, Vengeance and Law in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honour of William Ian Miller edited by Kate Gilbert and Stephen D. White (Brill, 2018).

2018

Tom Lambert

“Jurisdiction as Property in England, 900-1100” in Legalism: Property and Ownership edited by Georgy Kantor, Tom Lambert, and Hannah Skoda (Oxford University Press, 2017).

2017

Paul Brand

"Judges and Juries in Civil Litigation in Later Medieval England: The Millon Thesis Reconsidered," Journal of Legal History 37 (2016).

2017

Honorable Mention: Tim Hitchcock and William J. Turkel

"The Old Bailey Proceedings, 1674-1913: Text Mining for Evidence of Court Behavior," Law and History Review 34 (2016).

2016

Tom Hickman

"Revisiting Entick v. Carrington: Seditious Libel and State Security Laws in Eighteenth-Century England," in Entick v Carrington: 250 Years of the Rule of Law, edited by Adam Tomkins and Paul Scott, (Hart Publishing, 2015).

2016

Honorable Mention: Sascha Auerbach

"'Beyond the Pale of Mercy': Victorian Penal Culture, Police Court Missionaries, and the Origins of Probation in England," Law and History Review 33 (2015).

2015

H. Tomás Gómez-Arostegui

“Copyright at Common Law in 1774,” Connecticut Law Review 47 (2014).

2014

Garthine Walker

“Rape, Acquittal and Culpability in Popular Crime Reports in England, c.1670–c.1750,” Past and Present 220 (2013).

2013

John Baker

"Deeds Speak Louder Than Words: Covenants and the Law of Proof, 1290-1321," in Laws, Lawyers and Texts: Studies in Medieval Legal History in Honour of Paul Brand, edited by Susanne Jenks, Jonathan Rose, and Christopher Whittick (Brill, 2012).

2012

James Oldham

"Informal Lawmaking in England by the Twelve Judges in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries," Law and History Review 29 (2011).

2011

N. G. Jones

“Wills, Trusts and Trusting from the Statute of Uses to Lord Nottingham,” Journal of Legal History, 31 (2010).

2011

Matthew Stevens

“Failed Arbitrations before the Court of Common Pleas: Cases relating to London and Londoners, 1400–1468,” Journal of Legal History 31 (2010).

2010

Emily Kadens

“The Puzzle of Judicial Education: The Case of Chief Justice William de Grey,” Brooklyn Law Review 75 (2009).

2009

Paul D. Halliday and G. Edward White

“The Suspension Clause: English Text, Imperial Contexts, and American Implications,” Virginia Law Review 94 (2008).

2008

John Beattie

“Sir John Fielding and Public Justice: The Bow Street Magistrate’s Court, 1754-1780,” Law and History Review 25 (2007).

2007

Sara Butler

“Degrees of Culpability: Suicide Verdicts, Mercy, and the Jury in Medieval England,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (2006).

2006

Andrea McKenzie

“’This Death Some Strong and Stout Hearted Man Doth Choose’: The Practice of Peine Forte et Dure in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century England,” Law and History Review 23 (2005).

2005

Danya C. Wright

"‘Well-Behaved Women Don’t Make History’: Rethinking English Family Law,” Wisconsin Women’s Law Journal 19 (2004).

2004

Eliga Gould

“Zones of Law, Zones of Violence: The Legal Geography of the British Atlantic, circa 1772,” William and Mary Quarterly, 60 (2003)

2004

Daniel Klerman

“Was the Jury Ever Self-Informing?” Southern California Law Review 77 (2003).

2003

Joseph Biancalana

"Actions of Covenant, 1200-1330," Law and History review 20 (2002).

2001

Robert Shoemaker

"The Decline of Public Insult in London 1660-1800," Past and Present 169 (2000).

2000

John H. Langbein

"The Prosecutorial Origins of Defence Counsel in the Eighteenth Century: the Appearance of Solicitors," Cambridge Law Journal, 58 (1999).

2000

Honorable Mention: Norma Landau

"Indictment for Fun and Profit: A Prosecutor's Reward at Eighteenth-Century Quarter Sessions," Law and History Review 17 (1999).

1999

Peter King

"The Rise of Juvenile Delinquency in England, 1780-1840: Changing Patterns of Perception and Prosecution," Past and Present 160 (1998).

1999

Honorable Mention: Richard J. Ross

"The memorial Culture of Early Modern English Lawyers: Memory as Keyword, Shelter, and Identity, 1560-1640," Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 10 (1998).

1998

David J. Ibbetson

"Fault and Absolute Liability in Pre-Modern Contract Law," Journal of Legal History 18 (1997).

1998

Honorable Mention: Henry Ansgar Kelly

"Statutes of Rape and Alleged Ravishers of Wives: A Context for the Charges Against Thomas Mallory, Knight," Viator 28 (1997).

1997

Albert W. Alschuler

"Rediscovering Blackstone," University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 145 (1996).

1997

Honorable Mention: Margot Finn

"Women, Consumption and Coverture in England, 1760-1860," Historical Journal 39 (1996).

1996

Joan R. Kent

"The Centre and the Localities: State Formation and Parish Government in England, ca. 1640-1740," Historical Journal 38 (1995).

1995

Philip Hamburger

"Revolution and Judicial Review: Chief Justice Holt's Opinion in City of London v. Wood," Columbia Law Review 94 (1994).

1994

J.L. Barton

"The Mystery of Bracton," Journal of Legal History 14 (1993).

1992

J.M. Beattie

"Scales of Justice: Defense Counsel and the English Criminal Trial in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries," Law and History Review 9 (1991).

1991

Philip A. Hamburger

"The Development of the Nineteenth Century Censensus Theory of Contract," Law and History Review, 7 (1989)

1991

Amy Louise Erickson

"Common Law Versus Common Practice: The Use of Marriage Settlements in Early Modern England," Economic History Review 43 (1990).

1989

Joseph Biancalana

"For Want of Justice: Legal Reforms of Henry II," Columbia Law Review 88 (1988).

1988

Paul Brand

"Courtroom and Schoolroom: The Education of Lawyers in Britain prior to 1400," Historical Research 60 (1987).