Interpreting Legal Documents
While legal documents provide historians with a rich primary source base upon which to reconstruct the past, they cannot be separated from the boader historical context in which they are created and executed. An understanding of the broader context in which a law is made and carried out is essential to an understanding of the implications of the law itself. This section will help you to think critically about law formulation and application in order to help you better interpret what a specific law meant in a broader historical context.