This is the first comprehensive scholarly guide to colonial Massachusetts law and legal records. The first section consists of a general introduction by the editor, Daniel R. Coquillette, and eleven papers, including contributions by most of the leading scholars in the field. These relate to every major chronological period and include substantial new research as to the eariest practices in New England.

Many of these papers illustrate the impact of new methodologies and new attitudes toward the scope of legal history, encompassing not only traditional doctrinal studies, but also the use of logal sources to explore problems of social control and coercion and to describe more accurately the quality of life among all classes in the Bay Colony.