The Preacher's Plea: Juridical Influence in John Donne's Sermons, 1619-1623

In the early 1620s, discord over English foreign policy towards the Bohemia–Palatinate conflict led to sharp divisions within the Jacobean church and state. Preaching in the city pulpits of Whitehall, Lincoln's Inn and St. Paul's, John Donne thus faced the rhetorical task of adjudicating between competing factional claims, moral and political. How could such adjudication be achieved? Situated within the broad scholarly debate concerning Donne's religious and political conformity, this essay supports the view that early modern juridical concepts and practices played a significant part in shaping the accommodating nature of Donne's sermon elocutio. Specific aspects of such juridical influence include the civil lawyer's discriminating application of natural law in cases where positive laws conflict; the late sixteenth-century legal Year Book focus on the validity of judicial inaction; and the continuing shift in the early seventeenth century from oral to written priority in legal proceedings.