Maksymilian Del Mar’s Artefacts of Legal Inquiry: A literary perspective

This article explores the insights of Maksymilian Del Mar’s monograph Artefacts of Legal Inquiry from the perspective of a scholar of early Tudor literature and drama. It traces the origins of much of the early interlude drama in the culture of argumentation and ‘case putting’ originating in the Inns of Court of early modern London, and suggests the broad overlap between the rhetorical foundations of Tudor common law and those of the interlude drama of John Heywood and his contemporaries, drawing out the ways in which both deploy comedic tropes and personae.