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Husbands and Wives in Qin and Han-Dynasty Bamboo Legal Texts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 October 2021

Anne Behnke Kinney Open the ORCID record for Anne Behnke Kinney [Opens in a new window]
Anne Behnke Kinney*
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University of Virginia, USA.
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Abstract

In Qin and Han times, the establishment of a complex legal system that applied to every member of the empire brought about an unprecedented transformation of the husband–wife relationship, changing it from a bond largely determined by custom, ritual, and family concerns to one regulated by law. Laws recorded in the Zhangjiashan bamboo legal texts reveal that women's legal status in Qin and Han times was far higher and allowed for greater autonomy than previously imagined. Their increased legal standing may be traced to reduced household size, a policy set to counteract the mounting death toll and social chaos that followed Qin expansion and the transition from Qin to Han rule. I analyze exemplary cases to demonstrate how the small family system in conjunction with a legal order that empowered women as household heads created a new space for widows and wives to exercise their autonomy.

Keywords

Early imperial Chinamarriage and the lawcourt cases
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Chinese History 中國歷史學刊 , Volume 6 , Special Issue 2: Family Relations in Chinese History , July 2022 , pp. 225 - 245
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Thies Staack and another, anonymous, reviewer for their comments on this essay. I would also like to thank Ulrich Lau, Robin Yates, and Anthony Barbieri-Low for their helpful responses to my questions.

References

1 See, for example, Zhang Jinguang 張金光, “Shang Yang bianfa hou Qin jiating zhidu” 商鞅變法後秦家庭制度, Lishi yanjiu 歷史研究 1988.6: 74–90. On pre-Qin legal measures governing marriage, see Zhu Honglin 朱紅林, “Zhanguo shiqi youguan hunyin guanzi falü de yanjiu—zhujian Qin Han lü yu Zhouli bijiao yanjiu” 战国时期有关婚姻关系法律的研究--竹简秦汉律与《周礼》比较研究, Jilin shifan daxue xuebao 吉林師範 大學學報 no.2 (2011), 46–50. In this article, Zhu mines the Zhouli for evidence of state-imposed regulations on marriage. Jin Chunfeng 金春峯, Zhouguan zhi chengshu ji qi fanyang de wenhua yu shidai xinkao 周官之成書及其反映的文化與時代新考 (Taibei: Dongda tushu gongsi, 1993), 151–68 explores the apparently close connection between the Zhouguan and the institutions of the Qin state. Also see Schaberg, David, “The Zhouli as Constitutional Text,” in Statecraft and Classical Learning: The Rituals of Zhou in East Asian History, edited by Elman, Benjamin and Kern, Martin (Leiden: Brill 2010), 33–63Google Scholar. Yang Zhenhong 楊振紅 argues that the hierarchy and familism of laws created by Shang Yang represent a new ritual system. See Yang Zhenhong, “Cong chutu Qin Han lü kan Zhongguo gudai de ‘li’ ‘fa’ guannian jiqi falü tixia—Zhongguo gudai falü zhi Rujiahua shuo shangdui” 从出土秦汉律看中国古代的 “礼” “法” 观念及其法律体现--中国古代法律之儒家化说商兑, Zhongguo shi yanjiu 2010.4: 75–106.

2 For the limits on traditionally transmitted sources, see Dull, Jack, “Marriage and Divorce in Han China: A Glimpse at ‘Pre-Confucian’ Society,” in Chinese Family Law and Social Change, edited by Buxbaum, David C. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1978), 23–74Google Scholar. Other English-language studies of this topic include Ch’ü T'ung-tsu, Law and Society in Traditional China (Paris: Mouton & Company, 1961) and Thatcher, Melvin, “Marriages of the Ruling Elite in the Spring and Autumn Period” in Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society, edited by Watson, Rubie S. and Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 25–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Barbieri-Low, Anthony J., and Yates, Robin D. S., Law, State, and Society in Early Imperial China: A Study with Critical Edition and Translation of the Legal Texts from Zhangjiashan Tomb no. 247, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 1:97Google Scholar.

4 Lau, Ulrich and Staack, Thies, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages of the Chinese Empire: An Annotated Translation of the Exemplary Qin Criminal Cases from the Yuelu Academy Collection (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on the authenticity of these texts, see pp. 12–13.

5 Various views summarized in Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 1:98–99. Also see Li Xueqin 李學勤, “Zouyan shu” 奏讞書 Wenwu 文物 (part 1), 1993.8: 26–31; (part 2), 1995.3: 37–42.

6 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 1:99.

7 Lau and Staack, Legal Practice, 75–77.

8 Shuihudi Qinmu zhujian zhengli xiaozu 睡虎地 秦墓 竹簡整理小組, Shuihudi Qinmu zhujian 睡虎地 秦墓 竹簡 (Beijing: Wenwu, 1990), 147–64; McLeod, Katrina C. D. and Yates, Robin D. S., “Forms of Ch'in Law: An Annotated Translation of The Feng-chen shih,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 41.1 (1981), 111–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hulsewé, A.F.P., Remnants of Ch'in Law: An Annotated Translation of the Ch'in Legal and Administrative Rules of the 3rd Century B.C. Discovered in Yun-meng Prefecture, Hu-pei Province, in 1975 (Leiden: Brill, 1985), 183–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the most part, names are not used in the cases found in the Fengzhen shi but are replaced with Chinese “stem” ordinals (天干tiāngān). None of these cases focuses on husbands and wives.

9 Li Guofeng also suggests that the various rights accorded to women, such as the ability to head a household, was an important means to encourage household registration and stabilize the government in this transitional period. See Li Guofeng 李囯鋒, “Shilun Handai dui jiating guanxi de falü tiaozheng” 試論漢初對家庭關係的法律調整, Henan shifan daxue xuebao (zhexue shehuike xueban) 河南師範大學學報 （哲學社會科學版） 31.4 (2004), 129–31.

10 Ulrich Lau, The Scope of Private Jurisdiction in Early Imperial China: The Evidence of Newly Excavated Legal Documents,” Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques, 59.1 (2005):333–352.

11 For women as household head, see Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:801–803, 861 (slips no. 338–339, 345, 384); female ownership of property (limited to widows and unmarried women): (slips no. 379–380, 384, 387), 2:859, 861, 863; wife/daughter sharing husband's rank: 855–856 (slips no. 369, 372); beating: 2:403 (slip no. 32); dowry: Hulsewé, Remnants of Ch'in Law, 168–169 (D 149–150), strip nos. 170–171. Also see discussion of women as household heads in, Li Guofeng, “Shilun Handai dui jiating guanxi de falü tiaozheng,” 129–31. On the system of early Han ranks mentioned in the Zhangjiashan legal texts, see Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:xxii. Also see discussion of earlier systems in Loewe, Michael, “The Orders of Aristocratic Rank in Han China,” T'oung Pao 48.1–3 (1960), 97–174CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Yates, Robin, “Social Status in the Ch'in: Evidence from the Yün-meng Legal Documents. Part One: Commoners,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 47.1 (1987), 197–237CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 On continuity between Qin and early Han law, see Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 1:219–33.

13 Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 192–95.

14 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:547.

15 Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 27–28; Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:547 (slips no. 127–128).

16 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:857 (slip no. 372); also see, 2:499 (slips no. 82–83).

17 Sanft, Charles, Literate Community in Early Imperial China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2019), 47–50Google Scholar; and Zhongguo wenwu yanjiusuo Hubei sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo, eds., Longgang Qin jian 龍崗秦簡 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2001), 122 (slip 150). Michael Lüdke also supplies examples of how ordinary people had a general sense of laws and legal culture. See Michael Lüdke, “Professional Practice: Law in Qin and Han China” (PhD dissertation, University of Heidelberg, 2003), 178.

18 Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 195–200.

19 The phrase used to indicate direct speech here is 曰 Wan yue “Wan stated.”

20 Lüdke, “Professional Practice: Law in Qin and Han China,” 170.

21 Lüdke, “Professional Practice: Law in Qin and Han China,” 178.

22 See Korolkov, Maxim, “Arguing about Law: Interrogation Procedure under the Qin and Former Han Dynasties,” Études chinoises 30 (2011), 37–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 As Lau and Staack state, here the term qie refers to a female slave in contrast to male slaves (nu). The Han Dynasty, replaced the term qie with bi 婢. See Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 196 n. 941.

24 See Harper, Donald J., Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts (London: Kegan Paul International, 1998), 415Google Scholar; and Martin, , Wilbur, C., Slavery in China During the Former Han Dynasty (New York: Russell and Russell, 1943), 182Google Scholar. Also see Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:619 [slip no. 194].

25 See Zhang Xiaofeng 張小鋒, “Shi Zhangjiashan Hanjianzhong de ‘Yubi’” 釋張家山漢簡中的”御婢, Chutu wenxian yanjiu 出土文獻研究 6 (2004), 125–29, who argues that the status of the yubi lay somewhere between a domestic slave (奴婢 nubi) and a concubine, but who also shared some of the same functions and privileges as the wife.

26 “Engaging in illicit sexual relations with either the wife or riding slave of one's elder or younger brothers, father's younger brothers, or father's elder brothers: in every case, tattoo [the criminal] and make [him or her] a wallbuilder or grain-pounder”; translated by Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:619 (slip no. 195).

27 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:861 (slip no. 385).

28 Yates, Robin D.S., “Slavery in Early China: A Socio-Cultural Approach,” Journal of East Asian Archaeology 3.1–2 (2002), 283–331CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:215.

30 Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 195–200.

31 Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 207 n. 989; Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:723 (slip no. 260).

32 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:463 (slip no. 55).

33 As Maxim Korolkov has noted, “Although it remains unclear to what degree an ordinary commoner was able to navigate the intricacies of the early imperial legal system, numerically calibrated schedules of rewards and punishments encouraged them to do so, to negotiate exemptions from criminal culpability, reward, and social status.” See Korolkov, Maxim, “Calculating Crime and Punishment: Unofficial Law Enforcement, Quantification, and Legitimacy in Early Imperial China,” Critical Analysis of Law 3.1 (2016), 79, also n. 42Google Scholar.

34 On the punishment of being shaved and made a rice sifter convict; see Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:499 (slip no. 82).

35 Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 208–9 n. 999. Women who committed an offence punishable with penal labor of the category of “nai” 耐 would be punished with redemption instead. See Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:501 (slips no. 88–89).

36 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:547 (slip no. 127) and 501 (slip no. 89).

37 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:519, n, 34 in reference to slip no. 89.

38 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:511 (slip no. 119). “As one liang of gold equaled 576 cash (qian 錢, see p. 203 n. 57), the redemption fee to be paid by Wan would have amounted to 6,912 cash—roughly one tenth of the debts that were to be paid back to her, and which she failed to declare as “property” of her underage son (overall 68,300 cash).” Thies Staack, personal communication May 2021.

39 On the status of the “released person,” see Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 134 n. 671.

40 Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 204.

41 As for the menial Shi, the prevailing opinion was in favor of fining him two suits of armor, while the dissenting opinion called for making him an earth pounder convict and deporting him to Shu. See Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 209.

42 Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 201.

43 See Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 111 n. 572.

44 If, in fact, mitigation of punishments functioned as described in the Zhangjiashan legal manuscripts.

45 See Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 209.

46 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:1211. This quotation closely matches the Zhangjiashan statute slip no. 168 and D 146 from the Qin legal text found at Shuihudi. See Hulsewé, Remnants of Ch'in Law, 168. Also see Lau, Ulrich and Lüdke, Michael, Exemplarische Rechtsfälle vom Beginn der Han-Dynastie: eine kommentierte Übersetzung des Zouyanshu aus Zhangjiashan/Provinz Hubei (Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 2012), 132Google Scholar.

47 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:1213 (slips no. 34–35).

48 See Sima Qian 司馬遷, Shiji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1982), 68.2230–2232; translation based on William, H. Nienhauser, ed, The Grand Scribe's Records, 7.89–90.

49 Peng Nian 彭年, “Qin Han ‘tongju’ kaobian” 秦漢 “同居” 考辨. Shehui kexue yanjiu 社會科學 研究 (June 1990), 104–10. But Peng also demonstrates that elderly parents often lived with the family of one of their adult male offspring.

50 See, for example, Hunansheng Wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo 湖南省 文物 考古 研究所, eds., Liye fajue baogao 里耶 發掘報告 (Changsha: Yuelu, 2006), pp. 203–8 (slips K43, K2/23, K5). Two additional sources are relevant. The Qin Day Book A 日書甲種 found at Shuihudi 睡虎地, mentions days that are auspicious for dividing households (fenyi 分異), but lack of context renders its meaning ambiguous. See Shuihudi Qinmu zhujian zhengli xiaozu, Shuihudi Qinmu zhujian, 190 (strip 52). The legal documents discovered in the Han-dynasty Zhangjiashan tomb no. 247, which show many consistencies with Qin legal texts, also suggest that households were in fact divided. See Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:803 (slip 343).

51 See Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 200 n. 963.

52 See Anne Kinney, “An Introduction and Preliminary Translation of the Jiaonü, (Instructions for Daughters), a Qin Bamboo Text,” in Festschrift in Honor of Sarah Allan, ed. Christopher Foster, Constance Cook, and Susan Blader (Albany: State University of New York, forthcoming); and Zhu Fenghan 朱鳳瀚, “Beida Cang Qin Jian Jiaonü chushi” 北大藏秦簡教女初識, Journal of Peking University (Philosophy and Social Sciences) 北京大學學報 (哲學社會科學版) 52.2 (2015), 11 (section 25).

53 See Gao Yizhi 高一致, “Chu du Beida cang Qin jian Jiaonü,” 初讀北大藏秦簡《教女》August 13, 2015, www.bsm.org.cn/show_article.php?id=2285; and Zhu Fenghan 朱鳳瀚, “Beida Cang Qin Jian Jiaonü chushi” 北大藏秦簡教女初識, 5–15; Institute for Excavated Text Research of Peking University 北京大學出土文獻研究所, “Beijing Daxue cang Qin jian gaishu,” 北京大學藏秦簡概述, Wenwu文物, 2012.6: 65–74.

54 See Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 203 n. 973.

55 According to the case records, Wan's son, Yi, “took his father's place and became heir of the household and rank” (義代爲戶、爵後), but his mother was clearly still in charge of paying the taxes. See Lau and Staack, Legal Practice in the Formative Stages, 199–200.

56 The Jiaonü also details a variety of ways in which women get into trouble at home when their husbands are at work (e.g., drinking, flirting with tradesmen, etc.). See Kinney, “An Introduction and Preliminary Translation of the Jiaonü.”

57 See Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:1196.

58 Ban Gu, Hanshu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1962), 1B.66; translated by Homer Dubs, History of the Former Han Dynasty, 2 vols. (Baltimore: Waverly Press, 1944), 1:122. Gaozu was acting on the advice of Lou Jing 婁敬, who later oversaw the immigration; see Hanshu 43.2123.

59 See Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:1199 (slip no. 18).

60 Barbieri-Low and Yates, trans., Law, State, and Society, 2:1199–1201 (slips no. 17–23).

61 For a study of what may be pre-Qin marriage laws, see Zhu Honglin 朱紅林, “Zhanguo shiqi youguan hunyin guanxi falü de yanjiu” 戰國時期有關婚姻關係法律的研究, Jilin shifan daxue xuebao (renwen shehuike xueban) 吉林師範大學學報 (人文社會科學版) 2 (2011), 46–50.

62 See Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:1378–79; and Peng Wei 彭衛, Handai hunyin xingtai 漢代婚姻形態 (Beijing: Renmin daxue, 2010), 187–90.

63 See Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:1195–96. They argue that “This case clearly shows that subjects of the Qi Regional Lordship were not even considered subjects of the Han.”

64 Translated in Watson, Burton, The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), 82–92Google Scholar.

65 See Kinney, “Empress Lü: China's First Female Ruler,” in Geschlecht Macht Herrschaft—Interdisziplinäre Studien Zu Vormoderner Macht und Herrschaft: Gender Power Sovereignty—Interdisciplinary Studies on Premodern Power, ed. Andrea Stieldorf, Irina Dumitrescu, Linda Dohmen, and Ludwig D. Morenz (Bonn: V & R Unipress, forthcoming).

66 For other sources on the authority of women in early imperial times, see Michael Nylan, and Michael Loewe, China's Early Empires: A Re-appraisal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 280–83.

67 Shangzi 商子 in Wang Yunwu 王雲五. ed. Sibu congkan zhengbian 四部叢刊正編 (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1979), vol. 18, 1.14A. Also see Anne Kinney, Representations of Childhood and Youth in Early China, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), 135–37. According to one Zhangjiashan legal document, women were exempt from civilian labor service. See Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:903 (slip 412). But the Zhangjiashan texts preserve little information concerning conscription. References to the conscription of women appear in the received tradition, such as one notice suggesting that the state may have drafted women on an irregular basis for their sewing skills, as the First Emperor of Qin did when he dispatched 15,000 women to Yue to sew army uniforms. See Shiji 118.3086.

68 See Li Guofeng, “Shilun Handai dui Jiating guanxi de Falü tiaozheng,” 129–31. According to the Zhangjiashan “Statutes on Households,” married women were not allowed to set up a household. See Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:803 (slip 345).

69 On conscription, see Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:sections 3.23–3.24.

70 Gao Kai 高凱, “Cong Juyan Han jian kan Han dai de ‘nühu’ wenti” 從居延漢簡看漢代的 “女戶” 問題, Shixue yuekan 史學月刊 (September 2008), 82–92.

71 See, for example, Shiji 8.344–345 (Emperor Gaozu and Empress Lü); 89.2571 (Zhang Er), translated in Nienhauser, The Grand Scribe's Records, 10.1, 1–3; and 56.2051–2052 (Chen Ping 陳平) translated in Watson, Records of the Grand Historian of China, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press), 1:152–53. The text suggests that Zhang Er's wife was able to initiate her own divorce, but a variant reading suggests that in fact the woman's husband had died. Also see Song Rentao 宋仁桃, “Lüwen suojian Qin Han funü de quanli” 律文所見秦漢婦女的權利, Qin wenhua luncong 秦文化論叢 (2005) 12:549–58.

72 Shiji 117.2571 (unnamed woman); 117.3000–3001 (Zhuo Wenjun 卓文君 and Sima Xiangru 司馬相如); translated in Nienhauser, The Grand Scribe's Records, vol. 10, part 3, 85–87.

73 Yates and Barbieri-Low question the dating of this case in Law, State, and Society, 2:1320 n. 1.

74 Translated by Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:1319 (slips no. 119–123).

75 See Shiji 68, 2230; translated in Nienhauser, The Grand Scribe's Records, 7:89–90. Nevertheless, the state- imposed limitations on the ability of children and slaves to denounce family members; see Lau, “The Scope of Private Jurisdiction in Early Imperial China,” 343–45.

76 Hulsewé, Remnants of Ch'in Law, 179 (slip D 181), also see (D 18–19); for Zhangjiashan, see Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:1330 n. 73; also see 469 (slip no. 70).

77 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:539–40, note 150.

78 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:513 (slip no. 124).

79 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:403 (slips no. 32–33).

80 The amount of time officials devoted to mourning seems to have been between fifteen and thirty days. See Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:859 (slip no. 377) and 1381 (slip no. 180).

81 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:1381–83.

82 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:1383. The statute on consensual fornication, 617 (slip no. 192) also states: “For all those who engage in consensual illicit intercourse with other men's wives and for those with whom [they have fornicated]: in every case, leave [the criminal] intact and make [him or her] a wall-builder or grain-pounder

83 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:1381–83.

84 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:1381–85.

85 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:1385.

86 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:1385.

87 Barbieri-Low and Yates, Law, State, and Society, 2:1378.

88 See, for example, Sommer, Matthew H., Sex, Law and Society in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press), 168–77Google Scholar.

89 Nylan, Michael, “Notes on a Case of Illicit Sex from Zhangjiashan: A Translation and Commentary,” Early China 30 (2005–2006), 42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

90 It is especially the first case concerning the former slave Wan, which conforms to at least one schematization of classic story structure that shows the main character (1) confronted with a difficulty, followed by (2) a sympathetic view of the character's world, which is then shattered by (3) miscreants who threaten the main character's status quo, provoking (4) a sense that all is lost, from which emerges (5) a new idea that will solve the problem, and concluding with (6) the finale. These schemata are loosely based on Blake Snyder's, Save the Cat (n.p.: Michael Wiese, 2005). It is also worth noting that court cases are inherently dramatic. Also see discussion of the historical value of “fictionalized” legal accounts in Davis, Natalie Zemon, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987)Google Scholar.