The Identification and Generation of Habits and Customs: From Lawsuit Archives to Historical Anthropology.

Lawsuit archives record the definition, debate and manipulation of habits and customs in specific social and economic activities and judicial practice. In the study from historical-anthropological approach, different ideas and actions recorded in these documents are analyzed on the basis of concrete historical situation and long-term historical process. Both personal habits as behavioral existence and social customs identified by spoken and written language are the outcome of historical process. These habits and customs have been repeatedly chosen, interpreted and modified in the historical process which has been filled with competition for power and resources. The "habits and customs" in the study of lawsuit archives have become the core concept to link the materials of legal history and the study of historical anthropology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]