Revision as of 19:13, September 15, 2011

C17th legal bibliography

Calendars and law reports

Ames, X, A selection of cases on the laws of bills and notes, vol. 2 (XXXX, 1894)
Browning, E., V. Lushington, Reports of cases decided in the High Court of Admiralty of England, 1863-1865 (London, 1868)
Rutgers law library: - online resource to identify law reports, year books, books of authority, and statutes

Chancery

Braithwaite, Thomas W., The record and writ practice of the Court of Chancery comprising the several forms used in proceedings in the record and writ clers’ office (London, 1858)
Yale, D.E.C. (ed.) Lord Nottingham's (Heneage Finch) 'Manual of chancery practice' and 'Prolegomena of chancery and equity' (Cambridge, 1965)

• This book supplements the two volumes of Nottingham's Chancery cases (Selden Society, vols. 73 & 79)

Hardy, XXXX, Officers of the Court of Chancery (XXXX, XXXX)
Henderson, John Greene, Chancery practice: with especial reference to the office and duties of masters in chancery, registers, auditors, commissioners in chancery, court commissioners, master commissioners, referees, etc., including forms of orders of reference, master's reports, objections, exceptions, orders of ... (London, 1904)
Phillimore, X., Calendar of Chancery proceedings (London, 188X)
Sanders, G.W., Orders of the high court of Chancery, vol. 1 (London, 1845)
Nelson, William, Reports of cases decreed in the High Court of Chancery: during the time Sir Heneage Finch, afterwards earl of Nottingham, was lord chancellor. (1673-1680) (London, 1725)
Nelson, William, Reports of special cases argued and decreed in the Court of Chancery: in the reigns of King Charles I., King Charles II. and King William III. (1625-1693), 2nd ed. (London, 1786)

• The web link given by Google Book is actually for a volume of cases 1689-1722:

Finch, Thomas, Precedents in the high court of Chancery from the year 1689 to 1722, 2nd edn. (London, 1786) * Includes 'A table of the principal matters contained in the foregoing cases' (follows section 597 in main body of book)

• First edn. appears to be 1747

Raithby, John, Cases argued and adjudged in the High Court of Chancery (1680-1719), vol. 2, pt. 2 (London, 1806)

Courts

Baker, J.H., Monuments of Endlesse Labours: English Canonists and Their Work 1300-1900 (London, 1998)
- Cockburn, J.S., A history of English assizes, 1558-1714 (Cambridge, 1972)
Outhwaite, R.B. & Helmholz, R. H., The Rise and Fall of the English Ecclesiastical Courts, 1500-1860 (Cambridge, 2007)
- See especially:
--Ch.1 The ecclesiastical courts: structures and procedures, pp.1-14
--Ch.2 The business of the courts, 1500-1640, pp. 15-22
--Ch.6 Marital suits and marriage licences, pp. 4756
Phillimore, R., The practice and courts of civil and ecclesiastical law (XXXX, 1848)
Senior, W., Doctors Commons and the old court of admiralty (London, 1922)

Fields of law

Anonymous, The practick part of the law (XXXX, XXXX)
- Boyer, A.D. (ed.), Essays by Thomas Garden Barnes, Shaping the common law: from Glanvill to Hale, 1188-1688 (Stanford, 2008)

• Well written by an eminent legal historian, now an emeritus professor of Berkeley, California. The book consists of republished introductions to original works by the figures profiled. These introductions were originally published between 1982 and 2007
• See especially Ch. 1 'Glanvill', pp.11-22; Ch.2 'Littleton', pp.32-45; Ch.7 'Francis Bacon', pp. 98-113; Ch.8 'Sir Edward Coke', pp. 114-135

Davies, K.G., ‘Joint-stock investment in the later seventeenth century’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., vol. IV, no. 3, pp. 283-301 ?DATE CHECK
Finch,Thomas, Precedents in Chancery, 2nd ed. (London, 1786)
Giles, Jacob, Every man his own lawyer: or, A summary of the laws of England, in a new and instructive method, 7th edn. (London, 1768)

• See especially:

- In what time real and personal actions are to be commenced
- The court of common pleas
- writ of Subpœna for witnesses to testify
- A Writ of Error
- A Surrender of lands
- A Lease for years of a house
- and legacies
- In tail after possibility of iffue
- Ancestors and the laws relating to them
- Articles of agreement on Marriage in nature of a settlement
- The privileges of the Nobility
- Macnair, M.R.T., The law of proof in early modern equity (Berlin, 1999)

• Discusses 'the conceptual structure of the doctrine and procedure of proof of facts in the courts of equity and the relationship of this doctrine to the proof concepts of contemporary civilians (lawyers trained in the civil law tradition, working both in civil and canon laws)'. Argues that contemporaries were essentially right in seeing courts of equity as pursuing essentially civilian proof procedure and concepts

Townesend, George, A preparative to pleading...(Being) a work intended for the instruction and help of young clerks of the common pleas (XXXX, 1675)
Weber, Max, transl. Lutz Kaelber, The history of commercial partnerships in the Middle Ages (Lanham, MY, 2003)

Grays Inn

Prest, Wilfrid R., The Inns of Court under Elizabeth I and the early Stuarts, 1590-1640 (London, 1972)
Severn, M.D., Catalogue of the books in the library of the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn: with an index of subjects (London, 1906)

James Master of Yoke's Court law books

James Master, later of Yotes Court, was admitted to Grays Inn. Though not a practising lawyer he continued to buy law books after ceasing his studies. These purchases are recorded in his expense books, which have been published.

Coke's Institutes of the Laws of England, 4 vols. (London, 1628-1644)

• See Wikipedia entry on The Institutes of the Laws of England
• Four parts; first part: a Commentary upon Littleton. Often called "Coke on Littleton" or abbreviated "Co. Litt.", second part: Containing the Exposition of Many Ancient and Other Statutes., third part: Concerning High Treason, and Other Pleas of the Crown and Criminal Causes., fourth part: Concerning the Jurisdiction of Courts
• See wikipedia entry on Thomas de Lyttleton
• Littleton's Tenures in English, edited by Eugene Wambaugh (Washington, D.C., J. Byrne, 1903) is a well known modern edition
• Coke (1552-1634) studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, Clifford's Inn and Inner Temple. For background see wikipedia entry on Sir Edward Coke

Cowell's Interpreter
Finch's Law

• This is presumably an edition of H. Finch, Law or a discourse thereof in foure bookes (London, 1627) First published in French in 1613

Lawyers Light

• This is presumably an edition of John Doddridge, The lawyer's light, or, a due direction for the study of the common law (London, 1629)

Littleton, Doctor and student

• This is actually Christopher St. Germain’s Dialogus de fundamentis legum Anglie et de conscientia, known as Doctor and Student after the titles of the two interlocutors, a doctor of divinity and a student of the laws of England, a barrister
• See Doctor and Student (London, 1721)
• See Extracts from - The Dialogue in English, betweene a Doctor of Diuinitie, and a student in the lawes of England, printed by Richard Tottill, 1593.

Proclamations
The attourney's academy (London, 1623)

• Deals with court procedures, starting actions, issuing of writs, appropriate fees; but probably targeted at laymen

The office of an atturney
Tysadale, John (printer), The tenours and forme of indentures, obligations, quitances, bylles of payment, letters of sale and letters of exchange (London, 1541)
The terms of the law
West's Presidents (sic)

Judges & Serjeants at law

Prestwich's Respublica: ; or A display of the honors, ceremonies & ensigns of the Common-Wealth, under the protectorship of Oliver Cromwell: together [sic] with the names, armorial bearings, flags & pennons, of the different commanders of the English, Scotch, Irish Americans & French (London, 1787)

Lawyers

Brooks, C.W., Pettyfoggers and vipers of the commonwealth: the ‘lower branch’ of the legal profession in early modern England (Cambridge, 1986)

• Academic profile of Professor Christopher Brooks

- Foss, Edward, The Judges of England with sketches of their lives, 1603-1660 (vol. 6) (London, 1857)
Hart, A.R., A History of the king's serjeants at law in Ireland: honour rather than advantage? (XXXX, 2000)
- Lemmings, David, Gentlemen and barristers: the Inns of Court and the English bar, 1680-1730 (Oxford, 1990)

• See especially Ch. 1: 'The student body of the inns of court', pp. 8-30; Ch. 4 'Formal and informal legal education', pp.55-109; and Ch. 8: 'The pattern of preferment', pp. 235-257

Prest, Wilfrid R., The rise of the barristers: a social history of the English bar, 1590-1640 (Oxford, 1986)

• Appendix E Biographical Notes on Benchers, pp. 339-406
• Appendix G Geographical Origins of Sample, pp. 412-413
• Table 4.2 gentry and Unknowns: Geographical Origins, p. 92
• Table 4.4 Comparative Regional Origins
• Table 4.5 Migration and Urbanization
• Table 4.6 Regional Destinations
• Table 8.3 Regional Distribution of Royalists and Parliamentarians

O'Day, Rosemary, The professions in early modern England, 1450-1800: servants of the commonweal (London, 2000)

• Part Three: The lawyers of the common and civil laws, pp.111-180
• Ch. 6. The Common lawyers: students, barristers, serjeants and judges, pp. 119-150
• Ch. 7. The rise and fall of the Civilians, pp. 151-160
• Ch. 8. The Attorneys, pp. 162-179
• Profile of - Professor Rosemary O'Day

Prest, W.R., The Professions in early modern England (Beckenham, 1987)

• See especially Introduction: the professions and society in early modern England, pp. 1-24; Ch. 2: the anatomy of a profession: the clergy of the Church of England, pp. 25-63; Ch. 3: lawyers, pp. 64-93; Ch. 6: the estate steward, pp. 154-180; Ch. 7: the profession of arms, pp. 181-219

Osborn, L.B., The life, letters, and writings of John Hoskyns, 1566-1638 (New Haven, 1937)
- Serjeant-at-law, mentioned in Tucker Brooke & Matthias A. Shaaber, The Literary History of England: The Renaissance (1500-1600), 2nd ed. (London, 1967), p. 591

Legal History

Baker, J.H., The order of serjeants at law: A chronicle of creations, with related texts and a historical introduction (London, 1984)
Baker, J.H., The legal profession and the Common law (London, 1986)
Baker, J.H., ‘English law books and legal publishing’ in John Barnard & Donald F. McKenzie (eds.), The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain: 1557-1695 (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 474-503
Baker, J.H., An Introduction to English Legal History (4th ed., 2002)
Baker, J.H., The Oxford history of the laws of England, 1483-1558, vol. 6 (Oxford, 2003)
Baker, J.H., 'Common lawyers and the Inns of Court' in Elisabeth Leedham-Green & XXXX (eds.), The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland, vol. 1, To 1640 (Cambridge, 2006)

• Profile of Professor John Baker, FBA, legal historian, fellow and former master of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, Downing Professor of the laws of England, Cambridge (1998-)

Brooks, Christopher W., Lawyers, Litigation and English Society since 1450 (London, 1998)
Digby, Kenelm Edward and William Montagu Harrison, An introduction to the history of the law of real property: with original authorities, 5th edn. (Oxford, 1897)
- Heimholtz, R.H., The Oxford history of the laws of England: The canon law and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2004)

• See especially

-- Ch. 5 Civil procedure and the law of proof, pp. 311-354
-- Ch. 7 Testamentary law and probate jurisdiction, pp.387-432
-- Ch. 10 Marriage & divorce, pp.521-564
Ibbetson, David J., A historical introduction to the law of obligations (Oxford, 1999)

• See especially

-- The prehistory of the English law of obligation, pp.1-10, and especiallyThe economy of exchange, p. 3
-- Glanvill and the law of debt, pp. 17-20
-- The substantive law of contract, pp. 71-94, especially 'reciprocity', pp. 80-82
-- The rise of the action of assumpsit, pp. 126-154
-- The rise of the will theory, pp. 220-244, especially the will theory and the model of exchange, pp. 236-244
Sharp, James, 'Ch. 7: The people and the law' in Barry Reay (ed.), Popular culture in seventeenth-century England (?London, 1985)
Simpson, A.W.B., Biographical Dictionary of the Common Law (1984)
‘Warren, Charles, Ch. 2: English Law, Lawyers, and Law Books and Reports in the C17th Century’ in Charles Warren, History of the Harvard Law School and of early legal conditions in America , vol. 1 (New York, 1908)
- Stretton, Tim, Women waging law in Elizabethan England (Cambridge, 1998)
Winfield, Percy H., The Chief Sources of English Legal History (1925)

The Journal of Legal History
Law and History Review (Journal of the American Society for Legal History)

Library catalogues

'Common, Canon, and Civil Law', pp. 429-446 in T. Osborne & J. Shipton (booksellers), The first volume (for the year 1757) of a catalogue of the libraries of many eminent persons, lately deceas'd; ... Which will begin to be sold this day, and continue selling to the first of January 1758, ... at T. Osborne's and J. Shipton's ...(London, 1757)

Middle Temple

Hopwood, Charles Henry (ed.), Middle Temple records,1501-1603 vol. 1: minutes of parliament of the Middle Temple (London, 1904)
Hopwood, Charles Henry (ed.), Middle Temple records, 1603-1649, vol. 2: minutes of parliament of the Middle Temple (London, 1904)
Hopwood, Charles Henry (ed.), Middle Temple records, 1650-1709, vol. 3: minutes of parliament of the Middle Temple (London, 1905)
Hopwood, Charles Henry (ed.), Middle Temple records, vol. 4, Index of persons and places (London, 1905)

Other C17th law books

See Worrall, John, Bibliotheca legum: or A new and compleat list of all the common and statute law books of this realm, 7th edn. (London, 1749)

Bacon, Francis, The elements of the common lawes of England (XXXX, XXXX)

• Contained in The works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and Lord High Chancellor of England, vol. 2 (London, 1753)

Cowell, J., A law dictionary, or the interpreter (London, 1607)
Glanville's Tractatus or Treatises (XXXX, ca. 1188)

• Systematic codification of the legal process; introduced writs; a book of authority in English common law
• For further information see wikipedia entry on - Glanvill's Tractatus

Cooke, John, The vindication of the professors and profession of law (London, 1646)
Keble, Joseph, Reports in the Court of King's-Bench at Westminster From the XIIth to the XXXth year of the raigne of our late sovereign lord King Charles II, vol. 2, 18th-23rd year (London, 1685)
de Malynes, Gerard, Consuedo, vel, Lex Mercatoria: or, The Law Merchant: Divided into three parts, according to the Essential Parts of Traffick Necessary for All Statesmen, Judges, Magistrates, Temporal and Civil Lawyers, Mint-Men, Merchants, Mariners and Others Negotiating in all Places of the World (London, 1622)

• Malynes' Lex Mercatoria is considered a "Book of Authority," describing the law as it was at the time of publication in the field of merchant law
• See wikipedia entry on - Gerard de Malynes

Powell, Thomas, The Attorney's Academy (London, 1623)
Robinson, Richard, The perfect instruction of an atturney in the Common Place (Pleas)...with all Rules, Orders, Actions, writtes... (London, 1592)
Townsend, George, A preparative to pleading...(Being) a work intended for the instruction and help of young clerks of the Common Pleas (London, 1675)

Registers

Foster, J. (ed.), The register of admissions to Grays Inn, 1521-1889 (London, 1889)
Cooke, W.H. (ed.), Students admitted to Inner Temple, 1571-1625 (London, 1868)
XXXX, Calendar of Inner Temple, 1603-1660 (XXXX, XXXX)
XXXX (ed.), Records of the honourable society of Lincolns Inn Black Book, 1586-1660, vol. 2 (London, 1898)

William Dallison law library, 1584

William Dallison of Halling, gent., grandfather of Elizabeth Dallison's husband, was a practising lawyer of Gray's Inn. His subtantial law library at Halling was inventoried in 1584. He may have had further law books at his chamber in Gray's Inn, but these were not inventoried.

The Law Books of the Testator's preised as followeth :

Item ij Littletons Tenures, th'one old, th'other newe, xij:d.
Item ij old law books called Perkines, vj:d.
Item j little book of certen new Cases in the times of Henry 8, Edward 6, and Queene Mary, x:d.
Item lj books called Fitz Herbert his Natura Brevium ; th'one new, th'other old, iij:s iiij:d.
Item ij old books namely the Pleas of the Crowne called Stamford and the King's Prerogative in severall volumes, xiiij:d.
Item one little book called th' Abridgement of the book of Assises, iiij:d.
Item ij books called Magna Carta, xij:d.
Item j little book called th' Institucons or principall groundes of the lawes and Statutes in England, viij:d.
Item one little book called the termes of the lawe, vj:d.
Item one little book called Novo Narracionis, vj:d.
Item j little book of Presidents, viij:d.
Item ij old books of th'aucthority of Justices of Peace, vj:d.
Item j little book of written hand, in manner of a bridgement of the Lawe, iiij:d.
Item ij Abridgements of the Statutes, th'one made by Justice Rastall, th'other by Poulton, vj:s
Item ij great Abridgements of the Common Law, made by Justice Brook, th'one new and of small print ; th'other old and of a greater volume, xxxij:s.
Item the first part of Pleydon's Commentaries, vj:s viij:d.
Item one great Abridgement of all the law made by Justice Fitz Herbert, of a small print, xvij:s
Item the book of Henry 7 yeares, v:s.
Item the book of Edward 4 yeares, v:s.
Item j part of Edward III. yeares ; from the first yeare unto the x:th, viij:s.
Item j other parte of Edward III. yeares, from the xvij unto the xxxix, viij:s.
Item the book called the Quadragesimus of Edward III., iij:s iiij:d.
Item the book of Assises, vj'.
Item the first and the latter part of Henry 6 yeares, xij:s.
Item the Register of all the Writts as well originall as Judiciall, iij:s iiij:d.
Item the book of entries, iiij'.
Item the Statutes at large in one volume, from the time of Henry III. untill the first yeare of Queene Mary, ix'.
Summa vj:li xvj:s viij:d.

Web sources

University of Houston O'Quinn Law Library: Anglo-American Legal Tradition: 'Documents from Medievak and Early Modern England from the National Archives in London
- The material digitised falls under the specifications of a National Archives licence to AALT. The licence concerns materials between 1272 and 1650 and covers generally the series CP40, KB27, E159, E368, and C33. It also includes JUST1 up to 1350 and most of the main series for the various equity courts (such as REQ1). If the National Archives material does not fall within the licence, application can be made to expand the licence. Material after 1650 would be a much harder argument than material before 1650. The National Archives has given no undertaking, however, that they will consider any request for expansion.
- Wiki for AALT - - WALT
-- The WAALT launched April 29, 2011. Potential users should be aware that Robert Palmer at this point is handling all the administrative tasks of the WAALT as well as of the AALT
- University of Cambridge Law Faculty - Legal History Web Links