These stories from the Star Chamber papers, first published in 1958, reveal the real, and sometimes comic, side of the functioning of the Star Chamber – an English court of Law from the Middle Ages, which was set up to ensure the fair enforcement of law against prominent people who were too powerful to be convicted by ordinary courts. These stories are valuable both for the ‘real life’ detail they bring to a historical concept, and for the light they throw on accepted historical generalizations.