Development Of The English Law

The Formation of English Common Law provides a comprehensive overview of the development of early English law, one of the classic subjects of medieval history. This much expanded second edition spans the centuries from King Alfred to Magna Carta, abandoning the traditional but restrictive break at the Norman Conquest. Within a strong interpretative framework, it also integrates legal developments with wider changes in the thought, society, and politics of the time. Rather than simply tracing elements of the common law back to their Anglo-Saxon, Norman or other origins, John Hudson examines and analyses the emergence of the common law from the interaction of various elements that developed over time, such as the powerful royal government inherited from Anglo-Saxon England and land holding customs arising from the Norman Conquest. Containing a new chapter charting the Anglo-Saxon period, as well as a fully revised Further Reading section, this new edition is an authoritative yet highly accessible introduction to the formation of the English common law and is ideal for students of history and law.

The laws of Æthelbert of Kent (ca. 600), Hlohere and Eadric (685x686), and Wihtred (695), are the earliest laws from Anglo-Saxon England, and the first Germanic laws written in the vernacular. They are of unique importance as the only extant early medieval English laws that delineate the progress of law and legal language in the early days of the conversion to Christianity. Æthelbert's laws, the closest existing equivalent to Germanic law as it was transmitted in a pre-literate period, contrast with Hlohere and Eadric's expanded laws, which concentrate on legal procedure and process, and again contrast with the further changed laws of Wihtred which demonstrate how the new religion of Christianity adapted and changed the law to conform to changing social mores. This volume updates previous works with current scholarship in the fields of linguistics and social and legal history to present new editions and translations of these three Kentish pre-Alfredian laws. Each body of law is situated within its historical, literary, and legal context, annotated, and provided with facing-page translation.

The importance of the fourteenth century for the development of English law has long been recognised. The shocks and challenges of that period - the murder of the incompetent Edward II, Edward III's ever escalating military demands for the war in France and the unparalleled disaster of the Black Death - gave English society a trauma that found its ultimate expression in Lollardy and the Peasants' Revolt. Out of this ferment came the evolution of a system of justice still substantially recognisable today. This key theme for students of late medieval England has often been made needlessly difficult by the rarefied nature of most books available on the subject. The aim of this book is to present in lucid and approachable terms the main outline of the debate and the different schools of thought, and to suggest the best ways by which students can understand a crucial subject and how this helps illuminate many other aspects of English society during the reigns of Edward II, Edward III and Richard II.

"One of the Truly Great Pieces of Historical Literature of all Time" --Norman F. Cantor, Inventing the Middle Ages 66. Originally published: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898. 2 vols. xxxviii, 688; xiv, 691 pp. Reprint of the second and best edition. The History of English Law was the first systematic history based on modern historical methods. It addresses the period before the Norman Conquest in 1066, but deals primarily with the creation and establishment of the common law, a process initiated in the reign of Henry II (1154-1189) and concluded in the reign of Edward I (1272-1307). The first volume traces this history. The second volume treats the doctrines of the common law, including tenure, the law of personal condition, status and estate, and the jurisdiction and communities of the land. Gracefully written and enriched with countless references this is an essential book. First published in 1895, it remains a primary text for students of legal history and the social history of medieval England.

This book provides a challenging interpretation of the emergence of the common law in Anglo-Norman England, against the background of the general development of legal institutions in Europe. In a detailed discussion of the emergence of the central courts and the common law they administered, the author traces the rise of the writ system and the growth of the jury system in twelfth-century England. Professor van Caenegem attempts to explain why English law is so different from that on the Continent and why this divergence began in the twelfth century, arguing that chance and chronological accident played the major part and led to the paradox of a feudal law of continental origin becoming one of the most typical manifestations of English life and thought. First published in 1973, The Birth of the English Common Law has come to enjoy classical status, and in a preface Professor van Caenegem discusses some recent developments in the study of English law under the Norman and earliest Angevin kings.