Courts and the law are awesome

Ok. So here's more:

Medieval people, at least by the sources, were often quite reticent about what they were thinking and feeling. It can be difficult to find an adequate point of entry into the actual thinking of actual people because many of them couldn't write. However, when forced to come to court to defend themselves or to seek redress for damages or whatever other purpose, the compulsion to justify one's actions was, essentially, absolute. So in court, giving sworn testimony, is where some of the best and most interesting material from the middle ages can be found. If you want real people talking about real life, court is the place to find them.

This is a lot of the reason why I'm looking at cases involving piracy. Not so much because piracy is per se interesting (though it is) but because when people came to court they found themselves saying all kinds of things that we don't have access to in any other context.

So there!