FELONY FORFEITURE AND THE PROFITS OF CRIME IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

For much of English history, the law punished felons not just with death, but also with the loss of their possessions. This article examines the practice of felony forfeiture in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, focusing on who profited and with what effects. It argues that recognizing the role such profit-takers played challenges common depictions of the nature and meaning of participation in law and governance. The heightened use of judicial revenues as tokens of patronage under Elizabeth and the early Stuarts impinged upon participatory aspects of the law’s operation.