Amidst the shortening of the days, the gradual shift in color among the great trees of the university, and the students slowly whittling away at final papers, it comes as a refreshing change of pace to be able to admire an established scholar discussing a topic that has become her life’s work. On November 19th, 2025 Fordham University had the opportunity to host Esther Liberman Cuenca, Associate Professor of History at Texas A&M – Victoria, an alumna of the History Department at Fordham. Hosted by the O’Connell Initiative on the Global History of Capitalism, Dr. Cuenca presented the fruits of her labor, her first book, The Making of Urban Customary Law in Medieval and Reformation England, published by Oxford University Press. The previous day, the students of Fordham University were blessed to have heard her discuss another book. Edited in collaboration with her good friend and the Associate Director of the Center for Medieval Studies, Christina Bruno, PhD, it is entitled Law, Justice and Society in the Medieval World.
Dr. Cuenca invited us into the world of medieval customary law in England, which had been the topic of her dissertation in 2019. She presented to us the main character of her book, a burgher from Ipswich, Richard Percyvale, who had been given the task of composing a new custumal for the town and its governing body. Alongside her recounting of the custumal’s disappearance and Percyvale’s recomposition of it, she regaled her audience with a bird’s eye perspective regarding the centrality that custumals enjoyed within late medieval society and how this new legal corpus rose to such a position of prominence.
The prominence of law in the medieval period is well known. It was one of the main subjects taught in medieval universities across Europe and its codification by nobles and royalty signaled a great shift in the concept of the state. Customary law, on the other hand, the type of law which predominated in towns and cities, had not received much attention from the scholastics nor from modern scholars until the late 19th century. The primary focuses of customary law were the regulation of trade, litigation procedures, elections, and inheritance laws, in essence the ordering of everyday life. Passed down through tradition, customary law found its force in the collective memory of a community and in the understanding that these traditions had come about from time immemorial, its antiquity reinforcing its significance. Only in the twelfth century were these bodies of law written down, and the compilation of these bodies coincided with the rise of a self-conscious class of bourgeois townspeople.
Beginning in the late twelfth century, the merchant oligarchy recognized the need to express, preserve, and perpetuate their rights, which primarily revolved around the autonomy of the community and collection of dues. To achieve this goal, they used the mechanisms of organizing, synthesizing and commenting on law established by the royal chanceries, courts, and universities to begin their own codification attempts. These laws became an identity for the burgher class and reinforcement of the elevated status of the merchant/guild class in a time when political strife was omnipresent. Furthermore, compilations of laws were ways in which smaller towns could create connections to larger cities, particularly London, in order to strengthen their independence from lords and trans-regional merchant connections. To these laws were appended Arthurian romance and poetry which reinforced the quasi-noble status the burghers were trying to coopt for themselves. Finally, oaths. recorded mainly in the language of the people, bound these officeholders to their communities, past, present, and future, and to make them, in theory, accountable to their constituents. As a callback to her time working under
Dr. Maryanne Kowaleski, Dr. Cuenca showcased the comprehensive database she compiled regarding extant custumals to reinforce the compelling argument she weaves in her book.
In the end, Dr. Cuenca’s presentation left us all with a lot to digest as we wrap up our fall semester and prepare to enjoy the holidays. After her insightful presentation she spoke with some of the first year masters students as well as doctoral students about the peaks and valleys of professional development. She sets a good example to us regarding what could be achieved, even in a rough job market and uncertain future, by a graduate student who puts in serious time, has a scrappy attitude, and makes opportunities where others might not see it. We wish her all the best with her as Associate Professor at the University of Texas A&M – Victoria.
