Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T01:00:37.518Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Law

from Readership, libraries, texts and contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Nigel J. Morgan
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Rodney M. Thomson
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
Get access

Summary

Two distinct bodies of law were dominant in England in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries: the law of the Church, or canon law, and the law of the land – that is, the king’s law, or, as it came to be known in the thirteenth century, the common law. The two bodies developed in theoretical complexity and in detail of coverage, with an ever-growing number of explicit laws (canons, decretals, ordinances and statutes) being matched by a mass of customary variations. Separate legal professions came to specialize in the two types of law, and for their benefit books were written in which the different laws were more or less systematically set out and expounded. For both laws some juristic underpinning was provided by the civil law – the law of the later Roman empire, as set out in the sixth century by the emperor Justinian. Both on account of its influence on the canon law and the nascent common law and because of its own importance, the civil law’s texts and commentaries must also be considered here.

Canon law

General councils in the twelfth century

The Church’s law – as also its fundamental creeds and its theology – was anciently developed in the General or Ecumenical Councils, such as those of Nicaea I (325), Chalcedon (451) and Nicaea II (787). These councils’ canons were made known in England from the seventh century onwards. The councils of the Western Church (Constantinople IV, 869–70, and then Lateran I, 1123, and others) were attended by large numbers of archbishops and bishops and other senior ecclesiastics, who brought back home the texts of the conciliar canons.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

A collection of the wills known to be extant of the kings and queens of England and princes and princesses of the blood royal, ed. Nichols, J. 1780, London.Google Scholar
Allmand, C. T. 1982The civil lawyers’, in Profession, vocation, and culture in later medieval England, ed. Clough, C. H., Liverpool.Google Scholar
Baker, J. H. 1986Dr Thomas Fastolf and the history of law reporting’, Cambridge Law Journal, 45 ; rpt Baker 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, J. H. 1989a ‘John Bryt’s reports (1411–1412) and the year books of Henry IV’, Cambridge Law Journal, 48 ; rpt Baker 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, J. H. 1989b ‘Records, reports and the origins of case-law in England’, in Judicial records, law reports, and the growth of case law, ed. Baker, J. H., Berlin.Google Scholar
Baker, J. H. and Ringrose, J. 1996 A catalogue of English legal manuscripts in Cambridge University Library, Woodbridge.Google Scholar
Barker, L. K. 1991Ivo of Chartres and the Anglo-Norman cultural tradition’, Anglo-Norman Studies (formerly Proceedings of the Battle Conference of Anglo-Norman Studies), 13.Google Scholar
Bennett, A. L. 1986Antony Bek’s copy of the Statuta Angliae’, in England in the fourteenth century, Proceedings of the Harlaxton Symposium 1985, ed. Ormrod, W. M., Bury St Edmunds.Google Scholar
Boyle, L. E. 1983The beginnings of legal studies at Oxford’, Viator, 14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyle, L. E. 1984a Medieval Latin palaeography. A bibliographical introduction, Toronto.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brand, P. 1987Courtroom and schoolroom: the education of lawyers in England prior to 1400’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 60 ; rpt Brand 1992a.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brand, P. 1995The beginnings of English law reporting’, in Law reporting in Britain, ed. Stebbings, C., London and Rio Grande.Google Scholar
Brevia placitata, ed. Turner, G. J. 1951, Selden Society.Google Scholar
Brundage, J. A. 1993The Cambridge Faculty of Canon Law and the ecclesiastical courts of Ely’, in Medieval Cambridge: Essays on the Pre-Reformation University, ed. Zutshi, P., Cambridge.Google Scholar
Brundage, J. A. 1995 Medieval canon law, London and New York.Google Scholar
Calendar of the Register of Henry Wakefield, bishop of Worcester 1375–95, ed. Marett, W. P. 1972, Worcestershire Historical Society, New Series.Google Scholar
Casus placitorum and reports of cases in the king’s courts, 1272–1278, ed. Dunham, W. H. 1952, Selden Society.Google Scholar
Chapters of the Augustinian canons, ed. Salter, H. E. 1922, Canterbury and York Society, 29, Oxford.Google Scholar
Cheney, C. R. 1935Legislation of the medieval English church’, English Historical Review, 50 ; rpt in Cheney, 1982, art..Google Scholar
Cheney, C. R. 1941 English synodalia of the thirteenth century, London, rpt with a new introduction 1968, Oxford.Google Scholar
Cheney, M. G. 1975The council of Westminster 1175: new light on an old source’, Studies in Church History, 11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clanchy, M. T. 1979, 1993 From memory to written record. England 1066–1307, Cambridge, ma (2nd edn, Oxford).Google Scholar
Cobban, A. B. 1969 The King’s Hall within the University of Cambridge in the later middle ages, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Corner, D. R. 1983The earliest surviving manuscripts of Roger of Howden’s Chronica’, English Historical Review, 98.Google Scholar
Councils and synods, with other documents relating to the English Church, i, 871–1204, eds. Whitelock, D., Brett, M. and Brooke, C. N. L. 1981, 2 vols., Oxford.Google Scholar
Crook, D. 1982 Records of the General Eyre, Public Record Office Handbooks, no. 20, London.Google Scholar
Denholm-Young, N. 1943Who wrote Fleta?’, English Historical Review, 58 ; rpt in Denholm-Young 1969.Google Scholar
Dennison, L. 1986b ‘An illuminator of the Queen Mary Psalter group: the ancient 6 master’, Antiquaries Journal, 66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Destrez, J. 1935a La pecia dans les manuscrits universitaires du xiiie et du xive siècles, Paris.Google Scholar
Documents illustrating the activities of the general and provincial chapters of the English Black Monks, ed. Pantin, W. A. 1931–7, 3 vols., Royal Historical Society Camden, 3rd ser.Google Scholar
Dolezalek, G. 1989Reports of the “Rota” (14th –19th centuries)’, in Judicial records, law reports, and the growth of case law, ed. Baker, J. H., Berlin.Google Scholar
Duggan, C. 1963 Twelfth-century decretal collections and their importance in English history, London.Google Scholar
English historical documents, 1042–1189, tr. Douglas, D.C. and Greenaway, G. W. 1981, 2nd edn, London and New York.Google Scholar
Genest, J.-F. 1988Le fonds juridique d’unstationnaire italien à la fin du xiiie siècle: matériaux nouveaux pour servirà l’histoire de la pecia’, in La Production du livre universitaire au moyen âge:exemplaret pecia, eds. Bataillon, L. J., Guyot, B. G. and Rouse, R. H., Paris 1988.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. 2002The development of the illustration of legal manuscripts by Bolognese illuminators between 1241 and 1298’, in Juristische Buchproduktion im Mittelalter, ed. Colli, V., Frankfurt am Main.Google Scholar
Gullick, M. 2001The English-owned manuscripts of the Collectio Lanfranci (s. xi/xii)’, in The legacy of M. R. James, ed. Dennison, L., Donington.Google Scholar
Helmholz, R. H. 2004 The canon law and ecclesiastical jurisdiction from 597 to the 1640s, Oxford.Google Scholar
Holt, J. C. 1971The assizes of Henry II: the texts’, in The study of medieval records: essays in honour of Kathleen Major, eds. Bullough, D. A. and Storey, R. L., Oxford.Google Scholar
Humphreys, K. W. 1979The provision of students’ text-books in the later middle ages’, in Das Buch und sein Haus, eds. Fuhlrott, R. and Haller, B., 2 vols., Wiesbaden, II.Google Scholar
John, of Salisbury: Letters, eds. and tr. Millor, W. J., Butler, H. E. and Brooke, C. N. L. 1955–79, 2 vols., Nelson’s Medieval Texts/Oxford Medieval Texts.Google Scholar
Justinian, : The Institutes of Justinian, ed. and tr. Thomas, J. A. C. 1975, Cape Town.Google Scholar
Kaeppeli, T. and Shooner, H.-V. 1965 Les manuscrits médiévaux de Saint-Dominique de Dubrovnik, Institutum Historicum Fratrum Praedicatorum, Rome.Google Scholar
Kantorowicz, H. 1941 Bractonian problems, Glasgow.Google Scholar
Kemp, B. R. 1998God’s and the king’s good servant: Richard Poore, bishop of Salisbury, 1217–28’, Peritia, 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ker, N. R. 1990 Catalogue of manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon, 2nd edn, Oxford.Google Scholar
Kéry, L. 1999 Canonical collections of the early middle ages (ca. 400–1140). A bibliographical guide to the manuscripts and literature, Washington DC.Google Scholar
Kuttner, S. and Rathbone, E. 1949–51Anglo-Norman canonists of the twelfth century’, Traditio, 7 ; rpt in Kuttner, S. 1983 Gratian and the schools of law 1140–1234, ed. Landau, P., London, art. viii, with additions in ‘Retractationes’.Google Scholar
Kuttner, S. and Smalley, B. 1945The “Glossa ordinaria” to the Gregorian decretals’, English Historical Review, 60 ; rpt in Kuttner, S. 1990, Studies in the history of medieval canon law, Aldershot, art. xiii.Google Scholar
Le Bras, G., Lefebvre, C. and Rambaud, J. 1965 L’Age classique, 1140–1378: sources et théorie du droit, Histoire du droit et des institutions de l’église en Occident, ed. Bras, G., Paris.Google Scholar
Leges Henrici primi, ed. Downer, L. J. 1972, Oxford.Google Scholar
L’Engle, S. and Gibbs, R. 2001 Illuminating the law. Legal manuscripts in Cambridge collections, London and Turnhout.Google Scholar
Liebermann, F. 1893, ‘Instituta Cnuti aliorumque regum Anglorum’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society New Series 7.Google Scholar
Liebermann, F. 1894The text of Henry I’s coronation charter’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society New Series 8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Logan, F. D. 2004John Aton’, in The Oxford dictionary of national biography, ed. Matthew, H. C. G. and Harrison, B., 60 vols., Oxford 2004, II.Google Scholar
Maitland, F. W. 1889–90The history of the register of original writs’, Harvard Law Review, 3 ; rpt in Maitland 1911, II.Google Scholar
Maitland, F. W. 1892–3Glanvill revised’, Harvard Law Review, 6 ; rpt in Maitland 1911, II.Google Scholar
Maitland, F. W. 1911 Collected papers, ed. Fisher, H. A. L., 3 vols., Cambridge.Google Scholar
Melnikas, A. 1975 The corpus of the miniatures in the manuscripts of Decretum Gratiani, 3 vols., Studia Gratiana, Rome.Google Scholar
Michael, M. A. 1981The Harnhulle Psalter-Hours: an early fourteenth-century English illuminated manuscript’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michael, M. A. 1985A manuscript wedding gift from Philippa of Hainault to Edward III’, Burlington Magazine, 127.Google Scholar
Murano, G. 2002Tipologia degli exemplaria giuridici’, in Juristische Buchproduktion im Mittelalter, ed. Colli, V., Frankfurt am Main.Google Scholar
O’Brien, B. R. 1999a God’s peace and king’s peace. The laws of Edward the Confessor, Philadelphia PA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Brien, B. R. 1999b ‘The Becket conflict and the invention of the myth of Lex non scripta’, in Learning the law. Teaching and transmission of law in England 1150–1900, eds. Bush, J. A. and Wijffels, A., London and Rio Grande OH.Google Scholar
O’Brien, B. R. 2003The Instituta Cnuti and the translation of English law’, in Anglo-Norman Studies (formerly Proceedings of the Battle Conference of Anglo-Norman Studies), 25.Google Scholar
Orlandelli, G. 1959 Il libro a Bologna dal 1300 al 1330. Documenti con uno studio su il contratto di scrittura nella dottrina notarile Bolognese, Bologna.Google Scholar
Owen, D. M. 1990 The medieval canon law. Teaching, literature and transmission, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Pantin, W. A. 1927The general and provincial chapters of the English Black monks, 1215– 1540’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 4th ser. 10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkes, M. B. 1992b ‘The provision of books’, in The history of the University of Oxford, Oxford: I. Catto, J. I. (ed.), The early schools, Oxford 1984; II. Catto, J. I. and Evans, T. A..Google Scholar
Plucknett, T. F. T. 1922 Statutes and their interpretation in the first half of the fourteenth century, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Plucknett, T. F. T. 1949 Legislation of Edward I, Oxford.Google Scholar
Plucknett, T. F. T. 1958 Early English legal literature, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Pollard, G. 1964The University and the book trade inmedieval Oxford’, in Beiträge zum Berufsbewusstsein des mittelalterlichen Menschen, eds. Wilpert, P. and Eckert, W., Miscellanea mediaevalia, 3, Berlin.Google Scholar
Pollard, G. 1978The pecia system in the medieval universities’, in Parkes, M. B. and Watson, A. G. (eds.), Medieval scribes, manuscripts and libraries: essays presented to N. R. Ker, London 1978.Google Scholar
Pollock, F., and Maitland, F. W. 1898 The history of English law before the time of Edward I, 2 vols., 2nd edn, Cambridge; rpt with introduction by Milsom, S. F. C. 1968, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Poole, R. L. 1913The publication of great charters by the English kings’, English Historical Review, 28.Google Scholar
Ralph, of Hengham: Radulphi de Hengham, Summae, ed. Dunham, W. H. 1932, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Readings and moots at the Inns of Court in the fifteenth century, eds. Thorne, S. E. and Baker, J. H. 1954–90, 2 vols., Selden Society and.Google Scholar
Register of Bishop Philip Repingdon, 1405–1419, ed. Archer, M. 1963–82, 3 vols., Lincoln Record Society.Google Scholar
Richardson, H. G. 1938Glanville continued’, Law Quarterly Review, 54.Google Scholar
Richardson, H. G., and Sayles, G. O. 1934The early statutes’, Law Quarterly Review, 50 ; rpt Richardson, and Sayles, 1981 The English parliament in the middle ages, London, art. xxv.Google Scholar
Richardson, H. G., 1963 The governance of mediaeval England from the Conquest to Magna Carta, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Riley, H. T. 1868 Memorials of London, London.Google Scholar
Robinson, P. R. 1980“The booklet”: a self-contained unit in composite manuscripts’, in Codicologica 3: Essais typologiques, eds. Gruys, A. and Gumbert, J.-P., Leiden.Google Scholar
Roby, H. J. 1884 An introduction to the study of Justinian’s Digest, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Rolls of the justices in eyre, being the rolls of pleas and assizes for Lincolnshire 1218–1219 and Worcestershire 1221, ed. Stenton, D. M. 1934, Selden Society.Google Scholar
Rotuli litterarum patentium, 1201–1216, ed. Hardy, T. D. 1835, Record Commission, London.Google Scholar
Rouse, R. H. 1988The book trade in the University of Paris ca.1250–ca.1350’, in La Production du livre universitaire au moyen âge: exemplar et pecia, eds. Bataillon, L. J., Guyot, B. J. and Rouse, R. H., Paris.Google Scholar
Saunders, H. W. 1930 An introduction to the obedientiary and manor rolls of Norwich Cathedral Priory, Norwich.Google Scholar
Sayers, J. E. 1962Ajudge delegate formulary from Canterbury’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 35 ; rpt Sayers 1988a, art. viii.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sayers, J. E. 1964The judicial activities of the General Chapters’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 15 and ; rpt Sayers 1988a, art. v.Google Scholar
Senior, W. 1931Roman law mss. in England’, Law Quarterly Review, 47.Google Scholar
Simpson, W. 1895b ‘Visitations of churches belonging to St Paul’s in 1297 and 1458’, Royal Historical Society Camden, New Series.Google Scholar
Skemer, D. C. 1995From archives to the book trade: private statute rolls in England, 1285–1307’, Journal of the Society of Archivists, 16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skemer, D. C. 1997Sir William Breton’s book: production of Statuta Angliae in the late thirteenth century’, English Manuscript Studies 1100–1700 6.Google Scholar
Soetermeer, F. 1997 Utrumque Ius in Peciis. Aspetti della produzione libraria a Bologna fra Due e Trecento, Milan.Google Scholar
Soetermeer, F. 1999 Livres et juristes au Moyen Age, Goldbach.Google Scholar
Southern, R. W. 1950A note on the text of “Glanville”’, English Historical Review, 65.Google Scholar
Southern, R. W. 1976Master Vacarius and the beginning of an English academic tradition’, in Alexander, J. J. G. and Gibson, M. T. (eds.), Medieval learning and literature. Essays presented to R. W. Hunt, Oxford 1976.Google Scholar
Southern, R. W. 1987The changing role of universities in medieval Europe’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Statutacapitulorum generalium ordinis Cisterciensis, ab anno 1116 ad annum 1786, ed. Canivez, J.-M. 1933–41, 8 vols., Louvain.Google Scholar
Tarrant, J. 1984–5The manuscripts of the Constitutiones Clementinae’, Zeitschrift der Savigny- Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kan. Abt. 70 ; 71.Google Scholar
The earliest English law reports, ed. Brand, P. 1996, vols. I-II, Selden Society.Google Scholar
The register of Henry Chichele, archbishop of Canterbury, 4 vols., ed. Jacob, E. F. 1938–47, Oxford.Google Scholar
Thomas, of Marlborough: History of the abbey of Evesham, eds. and tr. Sayers, J. and Watkiss, L. 2003, Oxford Medieval Texts.Google Scholar
Thompson, A. H. 1915The will of Master William Doune, archdeacon of Leicester’, Antiquaries Journal, 72.Google Scholar
Thomson, R. M. 2001a A descriptive catalogue of the medieval manuscripts in Worcester Cathedral Library, Woodbridge.Google Scholar
Thorne, S. E. 1947Gilbert de Thornton’s Summa de legibus’, University of Toronto Law Journal 7 ; rpt Thorne 1985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ullmann, W. 1975 Law and politics in the middle ages, Cornell and London.Google Scholar
Vacarius, : Liber pauperum, ed. Zulueta, F. 1927, Selden Society.Google Scholar
Vacarius, : Summa de matrimonio, ed. Maitland, F. W. 1897, Law Quarterly Review, 13.
Van Caenegem, R. C. 1959 Royal writs in England, from the Conquest to Glanvill. Studies in the early history of the common law, Selden Society.Google Scholar
Watt, D. E. R. 2000 Medieval Church Councils in Scotland, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Winfield, P. H. 1923–4Abridgments of the Year Books’, Harvard Law Review, 37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wormald, P. 1994Quadripartitus’, in Law and government in medieval England and Normandy. Essays in honour of Sir James Holt, eds. Garnett, G. and Hudson, J., Cambridge ; with appx. by Sharpe, R., ‘The prefaces of Quadripartitus’, at 148–57.Google Scholar
Wormald, P. 1999 The making of English law: King Alfred to the twelfth century, vol. 1, Legislation and its limits, Oxford.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Law
  • Edited by Nigel J. Morgan, University of Cambridge, Rodney M. Thomson, University of Tasmania
  • Book: The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
  • Online publication: 28 November 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521782180.017
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Law
  • Edited by Nigel J. Morgan, University of Cambridge, Rodney M. Thomson, University of Tasmania
  • Book: The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
  • Online publication: 28 November 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521782180.017
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Law
  • Edited by Nigel J. Morgan, University of Cambridge, Rodney M. Thomson, University of Tasmania
  • Book: The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
  • Online publication: 28 November 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521782180.017
Available formats
×