1. Ross, Richard J., “The Commoning of the Common Law: The Renaissance Debate over Printing English Law, 1520–1640,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 146 (1998): 396CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. See, for example, ibid; and Harvey, David J., The Law Emprynted and Englysshed: The Printing Press as an Agent of Change in Law and Legal Culture 1475–1642 (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2015)Google Scholar. It should not be assumed that the movement of texts was always from print to manuscript. Incomplete printed texts might be finished in manuscript (see, for example, Toomer, G. J., “Selden's Historie of Tithes: Genesis, Publication, Aftermath,” Huntington Library Quarterly 65 [2002]: 345–78Google Scholar; and Serjeantson, Richard and Woolford, Thomas, “The Scribal Publication of a Printed Book: Francis Bacon's Certaine Considerations Touching…the Church of England (1604),” The Library, 7th series 10 [2009]: 119–56Google Scholar, both concerning suppressed printed texts) and printed texts currently unavailable could be supplied in manuscript (The National Archives, Kew [hereafter TNA], PRO C 108/115/8578 is an example of a scribe offering a work usually available in print in manuscript because “in print it is not to be had”). Manuscripts of printed legal works did continue to be produced, although this has been little studied (see, for example, the manuscripts of Littleton's Tenures identified in Baker, John H. and Ringrose, J. S., Catalogue of English Legal Manuscripts in Cambridge University Library [Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1996], 117Google Scholar).

3. One important observation about what this article cannot explain: There is no possibility on the known evidence of explaining why particular works that circulated in English manuscripts remained unprinted. This would include, inter alia, various readings, as well as reports and treatises on the Star Chamber. Such non-printing may have been a conscious choice, or might be explained by the relevant texts not reaching a potentially interested printer or bookseller at an apposite moment.

4. See n. 161 for an example.

5. The reasons for this are discussed in Williams, Ian, “Changes to Common Law Printing in the 1630s: Unlawful, Unreliable, Dishonest?” Journal of Legal History 39 (2018): 239–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. See Ross, “The Commoning of the Common Law,” 418, n. 270.

7. Calthrope, Charles, The Relation betweene the Lord of a Mannor and the Coppy-Holder His Tenant (London: William Cooke, 1635)Google Scholar was both licensed and printed in contravention of the patent. Both printings of Lambarde's Archeion in 1635 were licensed (by the same licenser) and not printed under the patent, although as the work combined legal and historical material, its status as a book of the common law might not have been clear (Lambarde, William, Archion, or, A comentary upon the high courts of justice in England [London: Daniel Frere, 1635]Google Scholar; and Lambarde, William, Archeion, or, A discourse upon the high courts of justice in England [London: Henry Seile, 1635]Google Scholar).

8. Rastell, John, Exposiciones terminorum legum anglorum (London: John Rastell, c.1525), sig. A2Google Scholar.

9. Daniel, Samuel, “To Sir Tho: Egerton Knight, Lord Keeper of the Great Seale of England,” in Poems and a Defence of Ryme: Selected works of an Important Elizabethan Poet, ed. Colby, Arthur Sprague (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 102 (lines 49 and 48)Google Scholar.

10. These were not the only obstacles to legal knowledge by non-lawyers. Most obviously, although printing the law in English would make legal texts accessible, such access would not guarantee understanding. Reading but misunderstanding was a concern for lawyers (see Coke, Edward, Le tierce part des reportes del Edward Coke [London: Thomas Wight, 1602], sig. EiGoogle Scholar; and Bacon, Francis, The Maxims of the Law in The Works of Francis Bacon, vol 7, ed. Spedding, James, Ellis, Robert, and Heath, Douglas [London: Longmans, 1879], 322Google Scholar). The extent to which legal texts printed in English were owned or read by non-lawyers is not addressed here.

11. See Ross, “The Commoning of the Common Law,” 396, n. 218, for a list of works that Ross considers as examples of making the common law available to a wider audience. The inclusion of some works on this list, such as the work known as Bracton, is questionable. Even common lawyers made relatively little use of that thirteenth century work (see Williams, Ian, “A Medieval Book and Early-Modern Law: Bracton’s Authority and Application in the Common Law c.1550–1640,” Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 79 [2011]: 51–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

12. For example, Pulton, Ferdinando, De Pace Regis et Regni (London: Companie of Stationers, 1609), sig. AiiiGoogle Scholar.

13. The earliest printed guide to quarter sessions contains a model charge (see Brooks, Christopher W., Law, Politics and Society in Early Modern England [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008], 22Google Scholar). William Lambarde's Eirenarcha, a handbook for justices of the peace, includes articles to be delivered at the quarter sessions, covering many issues of criminal law (Lambarde, William, Eirenarcha: Or the Office of Iustices of Peace [London: Ralph Newbery and H. Bynnemann, 1581], 310–82Google Scholar). Lambarde made clear that one of the purposes of the articles was “to instruct those that be ignorant, least they offende unawares” (Lambarde, Eirenarcha, 311), just the same as the instructional purpose behind the printing of the criminal law. John Davies’s charge to the Yorkshire grand jury in 1620 set out various points of basic criminal law to the laymen of the grand jury (Harvard Houghton Library Manuscript Eng 1084, fos. 219–59^v). It is not clear how far these early-modern sources reflect preprint practices, but it is plausible that they do, given the early appearance of a model charge in print.

14. This wider audience was not simply of laypeople. Beginning in the 1550s, the Inns of Court sought with some success to exclude attorneys from their membership (Brooks, Christopher W., ed., The Admissions Registers of Barnard's Inn 1620–1869 [London: Selden Society, 1995], 20Google Scholar). The English printing of material from the Inns of Court and the central common law courts may have counteracted this exclusivity, at least to some extent.

15. Hobart, Henry, The Reports of that Learned Sir Henry Hobart Knight, Late Lord Chiefe Justice of His Maiesties Court of Common Pleas at Westminster (London: Assigns of John More, 1641)Google Scholar.

16. Printed as Dodderidge, John, A Compleat Parson (London: Bernard Alsop and Thomas Fawcett for John Grove, 1630)Google Scholar.

17. Brooke, Robert, The reading of M. Robert Brook Serjeant of the Law, And Recorder of London, upon the stat. of Magna Charta, chap.17 (London: Miles Flesher and Robert Young for Laurence Chapman and William Cooke, 1641)Google Scholar.

18. As Law, or a discourse thereof in Foure Bookes (London: Societie of Stationers, 1627)Google Scholar. For the drafting process, see text at nn. 48–49.

19. Bacon, Francis, The Elements of the Common Lawes Of England Branched into a Double Tract: The One Contayning A Collection Of Some Principall Rules And Maximes of the Common Law…The Other The Use of the Common Law (London: assigns of John More, 1630)Google Scholar.

20. Lambarde, Archion; and Lambarde, Archeion.

21. This is especially visible in what Ross identifies as the “humanist” or “Rastellian” justifications for law-printing from the early sixteenth to the early seventeenth century (Ross, “The Commoning of the Common Law,” 329–42).

22. Ibid., 358–59.

23. Ross, “The Commoning of the Common Law,” 323–461; and Harvey, The Law Emprynted, 107–22.

24. Sebastian Sobecki has argued that the early sixteenth century vogue for printing the law in English was not inspired by humanism, but had its “roots in late-medieval ideas about vernacularity and translation” (Sobecki, Sebastian, Unwritten Verities: The Making of England's Vernacular Legal Culture, 1463–1549 [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015], 10, 140–52Google Scholar). There is also evidence that Christopher St. German's Doctor and Student was not motivated by humanist concerns about dissemination of law, but modelled on medieval continental confessional literature (Williams, Ian, “Christopher St German: Religion, Conscience and Law in Reformation England,” in Great Christian Jurists in English History, ed. Hill, Mark and Helmholz, R. H. [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017], 86–91Google Scholar).

25. The only exceptions are Coke's, EdwardThe First Part of the Institutes of the lawes of England. Or, A commentarie vpon Littleton (London: Societie of Stationers, 1628)Google Scholar; and Wentworth, Thomas, The Office And Dutie Of Executors (London: Andrew Crooke, Laurence Chapman, William Cooke and Richard Best, 1641)Google Scholar, sig. ¶3^v–¶6^r. Both of these authors seem to have regarded students as an important audience for their works (see text at nn. 145–48 and Wentworth, The Office And Dutie Of Executors, sig. ¶6^r).

26. In relation to an impression of acceptability, it is telling that one of the key sources for Ross's identification of a “two-tier model of legal knowledge” is the view of William Hudson in his work on the Star Chamber (Ross, “The Commoning of the Common Law,” 358). That work remained in manuscript (although it circulated widely) until the eighteenth century.

27. These printers and booksellers may also have sought to avoid attracting attention by courting controversy. Several of the printers and booksellers printing law books in English did so in breach of the common law patent (see text at nn. 160–61).

28. Prest, Wilfrid R., The Inns of Court under Elizabeth and the Early Stuarts, 1590–1640 (London: Longman, 1972), 5–7Google Scholar.

29. Ibid., 23–24.

30. For this centrality, see Brooks, Law, Politics and Society, 51–240. An example may be the very widely read Francis Russell, fourth Earl of Bedford. He entered Lincoln's Inn in 1608, but could not have studied for long (if at all), as he was appointed an associate bencher in 1611 (Ferris, John P., “Russell, Sir Francis [1587–1641],” in The House of Commons 1604–1629, vol. 6, ed. Ferris, John P. and Thrush, Andrew [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010], 114–15Google Scholar). Russell owned and annotated a set of manuscript Caroline Star Chamber reports that circulated widely in an English translation from the original law-French (although his copy appears to be a unique translation): Woburn Abbey MS 238. However, as noted in the text at n. 167, political and constitutional matters were largely omitted from printing in English until the 1640s.

31. Prest, The Inns of Court, 5–7.

32. Ross, “The Commoning of the Common Law,” does not consider how developments in legal manuscripts affected legal printing. Harvey, The Law Emprynted, does mention manuscripts in various places (especially 125–41 and 247–48), principally to explain their continued use and production when the printing press was available. There is a very brief acknowledgement that some “works may have been well known in manuscript form before they were finally printed” (ibid., 248), but no more about the influence of manuscripts on print.

33. Sobecki has argued that law-French should not be seen as distinct from English, but rather a vernacular “legal Franglais” (Sobecki, Unwritten Verities, 63). As a matter of linguistics this may be correct, but it is clear that law-French was seen as different from English by early-modern writers.

34. Plucknett, T. F. T. and Barton, J. L., eds., St German's Doctor and Student (London: Selden Society, 1974), 176Google Scholar. The quote is taken from the introduction to the Second Dialogue of Doctor and Student. The First Dialogue was in Latin and later translated (with omissions and additions) into English. On St. German's reasons for changing to English, see Williams, “Christopher St German,” 90.

35. Bacon, Maxims, 322.

36. Davies, John, Le Primer Reports des Cases & Matters en Ley resolves & adiudges en les Courts del Roy en Ireland (Dublin: John Franckton, 1615), sig. *3^vGoogle Scholar.

37. Foster, Elizabeth Read, ed., Proceedings in Parliament 1610, vol. 2, House of Commons (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 372–73Google Scholar. I thank Paul Cavill for drawing my attention to this reference.

38. Coke, Edward, La Sept Part Des Reports (London: Societie of Stationers, 1608), sig. A^vGoogle Scholar. A desire for wider dissemination may also explain the one report printed in English (and Roman type) in Sir John Davies's collection of Irish reports. This case, the final in the collection, concerned the prosecution of a priest for exercising papal authority in Ireland (The Case of Praemunire in Davies, Le Primer Reports, fo. 84), a useful case for propaganda purposes that may originally have been intended to be a distinct publication (see Brand, Paul, “Sir John Davies: Law Reporter or Self-Publicist?” Irish Jurist 43 [2008]: 8–9Google Scholar).

39. The report of Calvin's Case is also paginated separately from the remainder of the book, perhaps suggesting that the two were not necessarily to be purchased together. Given that early-modern books were often not sold bound, it may have been possible for purchasers to acquire solely the English language text (for binding costs, see the Jacobean broadside, A Generall Note of the Prises Of Binding Of All Sorts Of Bookes [undated], which includes a specific, albeit short, section for law books). Some evidence of this possibility can be found in Coke's Fifth Reports (Coke, Edward, Quinta pars relationum Edwardi Coke Equitis aurati/The Fift Part of the Reports of Sir Edward Coke Knight [London: Companie of Stationers, 1605]Google Scholar). As with the Seventh Reports, the Fifth included two distinctly paginated parts: in this case a section entitled “De Iure Regis ecclesiastico” in Latin and English parallel text, and then a selection of other reports in law-French. A copy of the Fifth Reports at the Huntington Library includes only the “De Iure Regis” section (Henry E Huntington Library, San Marino, RB 60778); two copies at Harvard Law School include only the law-French reports (Harvard Law School K Grea 400 Cokp5 605 STC 5504 c.1 and STC 5504 c.2). These copies suggest it was possible to acquire the separately paginated sections individually; the same may have been true for the Seventh Reports.

40. Cambers, Andrew, “Readers Marks and Religious Practice: Margaret Hoby's Marginalia,” in Tudor Books and Readers: Materiality and the Construction of Meaning, ed. King, John N. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 220Google Scholar. The Hoby library was at some point broken up, and there is no contemporary catalogue, so it is possible Thomas Hoby owned a wider range of law books. Given the family's puritan religious leanings, it is possible they were particularly interested in the discussion of the Church of England and the High Commission in the Fifth Reports (for the family's religious views, see ibid., 212–24).

41. For example, Lambarde, Eirenarcha; and Littleton, Thomas, Lyttelton tenures in Englysshe (London: Robert Redman, c. 1540)Google Scholar.

42. Staunford, William, An Exposicion of the Kinges Prerogative Collected out of the Great Abridgement Of Justice Fitzherbert And Other Olde Writers of the Lawes of Englande (London: Richard Tottel, 1567)Google Scholar.

43. McGlynn suggests that Staunford instead intended the Exposicion for “the new holders of land in knight service,” laymen and those with some legal training but not practitioners. This intended audience explains the focus in the text on situations that might occur with some regularity, rather than more complex scenarios discussed in readings (McGlynn, Margaret, The Royal Prerogative and the Learning of the Inns of Court [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003], 226CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

44. Baker, John H., “The Three Languages of the Common Law,” in Collected Papers on English Legal History, vol. 2, ed. Baker, John H. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 535CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The decline of law-French generally is discussed at 531–36.

45. Bland, D. S., “Henry VIII's Royal Commission on the Inns of Court,” Journal of the Society of Public Teachers of Law 10 (1969): 187Google Scholar.

46. Halliwell, James Orchard, ed., The Autobiography and Correspondence of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, Bart: during the Reigns of James I and Charles I, vol. 1 (London: R Bentley, 1845), 221, 223, 232Google Scholar.

47. Baker, J. H., ed., Readers and Readings in the Inns of Court and Chancery (London: Selden Society, 2000), 235, n. 83Google Scholar.

48. Finch, Henry, Nomotechnia; cestascavoir, Un description del common leys dangleterre solonque les rules del art (London: Societie of Stationers, 1613)Google Scholar.

49. Prest, Wilfrid, “The Dialectical Origins of Finch's Law,” Cambridge Law Journal 36 (1977): 326–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50. Bacon, Maxims, 322.

51. See Williams, Ian, “Common Law Scholarship and the Written Word,” in Oxford Handbook of Law and Literature, 1500–1700, ed. Hutson, Lorna (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 65–66Google Scholar.

52. John Baker, “The Dark Age of English Legal History,” in Collected Papers, vol. 3, 1426–59, at 1451 (for discussion of all the known surviving individual speeches, see 1450–51).

53. Good examples are the unusually full reports for the reign of Charles I found in Cambridge University Library Manuscript (hereafter CUL MS) Gg.2.19, and 20 and various other copies (see Baker and Ringrose, Catalogue of English Legal Manuscripts, 261). A collection of seemingly co-ordinated manuscript reports by members of Gray's Inn survive in predominantly French versions (for the collections see the discussion in Bryson, W. H., ed., Cases Concerning Equity and the Courts of Equity, 1550–1660, Part I [London: Selden Society, 2000], xvii–xviiiGoogle Scholar). An English version of the Common Pleas reports attributed to William Allestree as part of this group exists (CUL MS Ii.5.34), but a longer French version is probably closer to the original (Yale Law School MS G. R29.22).

54. See text at nn. 139–42.

55. The first law report to be printed in English was of a single case: Anon, A Briefe Declaration for what Manner Of Special Nusance Concerning Private Dwelling Houses, A Man May Have His Remedy By Assise, Or Other Action as the Case Requires (London: William Cooke, 1636)Google Scholar. Although described as a “declaration” of the law, it reports the arguments of counsel and judges.

56. British Library Manuscript (hereafter BL MS) Lansdowne 1090; BL MS Stowe 400; CUL MS Ii.5.33; CUL MS Ll.3.5; CUL MS Ll.3.15; Harvard Law School Manuscript 1123; Inner Temple Manuscript Barrington 11; Lincoln's Inn Manuscript (hereafter LI MS) Maynard 65.

57. These reports were printed in English in the Interregnum (Lane, Richard, Reports in the Court of Exchequer, beginning in the third, And Ending in the Ninth Year of the Raign O The Late King James [London: W. Lee, D. Pakeman and G. Bedell, 1657]Google Scholar). It is very unlikely that they are by Lane (Hall, G. D. G., “Bate's Case and ‘Lane's’ Reports: The Authenticity of a Seventeenth Century Legal Text,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 35 [1953]: 405–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

58. On these complexities, see Hall, “Bate's Case.” More manuscripts survive than are noted by Hall. I have not consulted all the available manuscripts, but a selection suffices for these observations on the language of the reports.

59. Hall, “Bate's Case,” 412–13.

60. The attribution is made on the title page of BL MS Hargrave 16 and accepted by Hall (Hall, “Bate's Case,” 413). The manuscript is in an early seventeenth-century hand. On Calthorpe, see Brooks, Christopher W., “Calthorpe, Sir Henry,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 9, ed. Matthew, H. C. G. and Harrison, Brian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 562–63Google Scholar.

61. For example, the versions of the reports found in BL MS Hargrave 16, BL MS Hargrave 33 and CUL Gg.2.23, fos. 17–24 and 158–219.

62. For example, BL MS Harley 4814 fos. 218 onwards.

63. Hall identifies that the same hand appears in the report of Brett v. Johnson in BL MS Hargrave 33 and BL MS Harley 4814 from fo. 224^v (Hall, “Bate's Case,” 413, n. 1), but in Hargrave 33, the text is in English, whereas in Harley 4814 at fo. 224^v it changes between English and law-French.

64. For example, Ayrie v. Alcock (1608) BL MS Hargrave 16, fo. 8^v: “Sur speciall verdict le Jury trove que le Queenes Colledge in Oxon fuit incorporate per le nosme de provost et Schollers of the hall of the Queens Colledge of Oxford & they were seised in fee of an Advowson whereof the place is.” After the facts are fully set out, the argument in law-French begins: “Harris Junior Seriant per le plaintiff semble que presentacion del lessor le defendant ne fuit.”

65. For example, BL MS Hargrave 16, fo. 16: “It was held for lawe that if a man doth make a feoffment to A to the use of B: for the life of C: et que si B et C: morust then to remaine this is contingent remainder by Barastons case in Cooke et Colthirsts case in Plowden:.”

66. This may also explain the use of English to set out facts or grants, as in Ayrie v. Alcock (n. 64).

67. BL MS Hargrave 28. A similar process of reducing the length of an existing series of reports can be seen in UCL MS Ogden 29, which includes a redacted manuscript version of Edward Coke's printed Tenth Reports.

68. BL MS Hargrave 28, fos. 1–6 and 13–15.

69. The last lawyer's diary written in law-French is that of Richard Hutton (W. R. Prest, ed., The Diary of Sir Richard Hutton, 1614–1639 [London: Selden Society, 1991]). The last parliamentary diaries written in law-French seem to be those of John Hawarde and John Lowther, both for the 1624 Parliament (in Philip Baker, ed., Proceedings in Parliament 1624: the House of Commons, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/proceedings-1624-parl [November 9, 2017]). I thank Paul Cavill for bringing the parliamentary diaries to my attention and Andrew Thrush for his observations on them.

70. Proceedings in Parliament 1624: The House of Commons, British History Online entries for February 19 (English) and February 24 (law-French) 1624. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/proceedings-1624-parl (November 9, 2017)

71. Williams, Ian, “Francis Bacon's ‘Speech on a Case of Deer-Stealing,’” Notes and Queries 64 (2017): 317–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72. For Plowden as a model, see Baker, John H., Reports from the Lost Notebooks of Sir James Dyer, vol. 1 (London: Selden Society, 1994), xxxviGoogle Scholar.

73. See nn. 66–68.

74. For example, the language of “consideration” does not appear in the yearbooks until the 1530s, at first associated with uses. It is only in the late 1530s that assumpsit claims begin to refer to consideration by name (Baker, John, The Oxford History of the Laws of England, Vol. VI, 1483–1558 [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003], 863–68Google Scholar).

75. Baker, “Three Languages,” 535.

76. For discussion of the idea of manuscript publication, see Love, Harold, Scribal Publication in Seventeenth Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 35–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

77. For example, Harvey, The Law Emprynted, 139–41.

78. Williams, “Common Law Scholarship,” 68–69.

79. On Lambarde's collection, see Ward, P. L., “William Lambarde's Collections on Chancery,” Harvard Library Bulletin 7 (1953): 271–98Google Scholar. More than forty manuscripts of Lambarde's Archeion, or parts of it, survive. See Baker and Ringrose, Catalogue of English Legal Manuscripts, 265–66. Some copies are more than 1,000 pages long.

80. The “feathery scribe” identified by Peter Beal (Beal, Peter, In Praise of Scribes: Manuscripts and their Makers in Seventeenth-Century England [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998], 96Google Scholar).

81. William Mill, “A Discourse concerning the Antiquity of the Starrchamber occasioned by Certeyne Articles made by the Attourneys against the Courte & Clerke of the same,” BL MS Harg 216, fos. 109^v, 112, 115, 116, and 120 (this work is from the early 1590s; another copy is Bodl. MS Eng. Hist. C.804, fos. 265–300); Hudson, William, “A Treatise of the Court of Star Chamber,” printed in Collectanea Juridica, ed. Hargrave, Francis (London: E. and R. Brooke, 1791), 1–240Google Scholar. Hudson seems to treat Lambarde's work as well known; indeed, comparable to Thomas Smith's printed De Republica Anglorum (London: Henry Midleton for Gregory Seaton, 1583)Google Scholar, a work reprinted in 1584 and 1610 under that title, and reprinted six times as The Common-wealth of England between 1589 and 1621.

82. Listed in BL MS Harl 537, fos. 80–86 at fo. 83^v. These proceedings feature in a scribal copy in Bodl MS Rawl C 838, 141–49. Bodl MS Rawl C838 is principally a collection of speeches by Sir Walter Mildmay, many of which are also listed in Starkey's catalogue (BL MS Harl 537 at 83). At his death, Starkey's study contained several other Star Chamber cases, together with other legal manuscripts (Huntington Library Ellesmere MS 8175).

83. BL MS Hargrave 311, fo. 206–7^v at fos. 207^v and 207. The manuscript identifies James I as the current king, and includes material dated 1622 (fo. 207^v), providing the range of dates for the catalogue. Ralph Starkey's study also contained a manuscript on Commendams at his death (Huntington Library Ellesmere MS 8175).

84. BL MS Hargrave 311, fo. 207^v. It is very tempting to identify these works with Lambarde's collections on these two courts (see nn. 79–81), but other such works and collections did exist. The contents of Ralph Starkey's study on his death also contained “A greate vollume of the proceedings in the Channcery” and “A greate vollume of the proceedings in the starre chamber” (Huntington Library Ellesmere MS 8175). It is impossible to determine whether these are the same works as in the 1622–25 catalogue.

85. On the conferences concerning prohibitions, see Smith, David C., Sir Edward Coke and the Reformation of the Laws: Religion, Politics and Jurisprudence, 1578–1616 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 198–204CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86. Halliwell, Autobiography, vol. 2, 39–40. Cotton's clerk was hardly unique (see Millstone, Noah, Manuscript Circulation and the Invention of Politics in Early Stuart England [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016], 49–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

87. Plowden, Edmund, Les Comentaries, ou les Reportes (London: Richard Tottel, 1571), sig. ¶3Google Scholar.

88. BL MS Lansdowne 620, fo. 39.

89. Some caution is warranted. This remark appears following the striking through of various politically controversial comments in the reports. Lightfoot clearly did try to reduce his responsibility for the comments, as his note continues, “And it [the book] is not of my owne colleccion.”

90. Millstone, Manuscript Circulation, 47.

91. Dekker, Thomas, Newes from Hell Brought by the Divells Carrier (London: R.B. for W. Ferebrand, 1606), sig. B2rGoogle Scholar.

92. BL MS Hargrave 311, fo. 207^v. It is not clear whether this means that the manuscript dealer had multiple common law items for sale, or perhaps a single volume with mixed contents.

93. This evidence demonstrates that the suggestion that more technical material may not have left the households of lawyers, and may not have circulated scribally is incorrect (Williams, “Common Law Scholarship,” 68), although it is not clear if the common law pieces were scribally produced, or if the dealer was merely selling a previously personal manuscript. For further evidence of the sale of law reports, see n. 105.

94. Millstone, Manuscript Circulation, 3.

95. Ibid. 100. For the commercial availability of legal manuscripts in the 1620s, see nn. 92 and 152.

96. See n. 20 and text at nn. 79–81.

97. Bacon, Nicholas, Arguments exhibited in Parliament by Sir Nicholas Bacon (London: 1641)Google Scholar. For differences between the print and some of the manuscripts, see Williams, “Changes to Common Law Printing,” text at nn. 40–42.

98. Coke, Edward, A Little Treatise of Baile and Mainprize (London: William Cooke, 1635)Google Scholar.

99. Beal, In Praise of Scribes, 241, 247, referring to BL MS Harley 444 and BL MS Stowe 145. The copy of Baile and Mainprize in the latter is not by the “feathery scribe,” but other parts of the volume are. A copy of Baile and Mainprize was also listed in the contents of the study of the manuscript dealer Ralph Starkey (Huntington Library Ellesmere MS 8175).

100. For manuscripts, see Baker and Ringrose, Catalogue of English Legal Manuscripts, 372–73.

101. Egerton, Thomas, The priviledges and prerogatives of the High Court of Chancery (London: Henry Sheapheard, 1641)Google Scholar.

102. Twenty-nine copies are listed in Baker and Ringrose, Catalogue of English Legal Manuscripts, 269. Another copy is Huntington Library MS 57342, fos. 1–19^v.

103. See n. 56. This does not include the redaction of Hobart's Reports in BL MS Hargrave 28.

104. CUL MS Ii.5.33, fo. 565^v (January 30, 1638); and LI MS Maynard 65, fly (May 28, 1635).

105. LI MS Maynard 65, fly. This is a considerably higher price than for any second-hand printed law book in a list probably from c.1615 to c. 1628, where the maximum price is £1 10s (BL MS Harley 160, fo. 233).

106. For the text, see Baker, J. H., English Legal Manuscripts, vol 2: Catalogue of the Manuscript Year Books, Readings, and Law Reports in Lincoln's Inn, the Bodleian Library and Gray's Inn (Zug: Inter Documentation Company, 1978), 69Google Scholar.

107. Dodderidge, A Compleat Parson. For the manuscript copies, see Baker, Readers and Readings, 211.

108. Calthrope, The Relation; and Baker, Readers and Readings, 203.

109. Brooke, The reading; for manuscripts see Baker, Readers and Readings, 159, including identification of two further lost texts. Bacon, Francis, The Learned Reading of Sir Francis Bacon, one of Her Majesties Learned Counsell At Law, Upon The Statute Of Uses (London: Matthew Walbancke and Laurence Chapman, 1642)Google Scholar. For manuscripts, see Baker, Readers and Readings, 49.

110. See n. 92.

111. Harvey's suggestion that the availability of readings in manuscript might therefore have discouraged printers from printing them seems the opposite of what occurred in practice (Harvey, The Law Emprynted, 182).

112. Arber, Edward, A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London, 1554–1640 A.D., vol. 4 (London: privately printed, 1875–94), 187Google Scholar.

113. Dodderidge, John, The Lawyers Light (London: Bernard Alsop and Thomas Fawcett for Benjamin Fisher, 1629)Google Scholar. Another of Dodderidge's posthumously printed works (Dodderidge, John, The History of the Ancient And Moderne Estate Of the Principality of Wales, Dutchy Of Cornewall, And Earldome of Chester [London: Thomas Harper for Godfrey Emondson and Thomas Alchorne, 1630]Google Scholar) also circulated in manuscript in his lifetime, being available for purchase in 1622–1625 (BL MS Hargrave 311, fo. 207^v). Other Dodderidge material was available for purchase from Ralph Starkey in 1626 (TNA PRO C 108/115/8575, a letter advertising various works from Starkey to Sir John Scudamore). It is possible that the “Treatise concerning the Nobility according to the lawes of England” found in Starkey's study after his death (Huntington Library Ellesmere MS 8175) is a manuscript of the work printed as Bird, The Magazine Of Honour, or, a Treatise of the Severall Degrees of the Nobility of this Kingdome with their Rights And Priviledges also of Knights, Esquires, Gentlemen And Yeomen, And Matters Incident to them According to the Lawes And Customes of England (London: for William Sheares, 1642)Google Scholar. That work was described on the title page as “perused and enlarged by that learned and iudicious lawyer, Sir John Doderidge.”

114. Coke, Edward, The Compleat Copy-Holder (London: William Cooke, 1641)Google Scholar, sig. A2 (“comming to my hands”); Speciall and Selected Law-Cases Concerning The Persons And Estates Of All Men Whatsoever Collected And Gathered Out of the Reports, And Yearbooks of the Common-Law Of England (London: William Cooke, 1641)Google Scholar, sig. A3 (“comming to my hands”); Whitelocke, James, A Learned And Necessary Argument To Prove That Each Subject Hath A Propriety in his Goods (London: Richard Bishop for John Burroughes, 1641)Google Scholar, unpaginated, “To the Courteous Reader” (“falling into my hands”); and TH, Certain Observations Concerning a Deed of Feoffment, sig. L2 (“coming to my hands”), in Noy, W, A Treatise of the Principall Grounds and Maximes of the Lawes of the Kingdome (London: William Cooke, 1642)Google Scholar.

115. Staunford, An Exposicion, sig. Aii. For Staunford's life, see Baker, J. H., “Stanford, Sir William (1509–1558),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 52, ed. Matthew, H. C. G. and Harrison, Brian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 108–9Google Scholar. The risk of circulating manuscripts reaching the press is visible in the preface to Egerton, Thomas, The Speech of the Lord Chancellor of England, in the Eschequer Chamber, Touching the Post-nati (London: Societie of Stationers, 1609)Google Scholar, sig. A5^v–A6. Egerton refers to “pieces of my Speech have bin put in writing, & dispersed into many hands, and some offred to the Presse.”

116. It could also enable an author to disclaim responsibility for the printing, although this would not have been a concern for those legal works of which the authors were dead (such as those in nn. 114 and 115).

117. Bennett, H.S., English Books & Readers 1603 to 1640: Being a Study in the History of the Book Trade in the Reigns of James I and Charles I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 61Google Scholar.

118. Ibid., 62.

119. N. 113. The Use of the Law is bound together with The Lawyers Light, and there is a combined title page, but the two works are separately paginated.

120. N. 16.

121. Cotton, Robert, A Short View of the Long Life and Raigne of Henry the Third, King of England (London: 1627)Google Scholar.

122. Plomer, Henry R., A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers Who Were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667 (London: Blades, East, and Blades for the Bibliographical Society, 1907), 4Google Scholar.

123. Sharpe, Kevin, Sir Robert Cotton 1586–1631: History and Politics in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 238–40Google Scholar.

124. Greg, W. W., A Companion to Arber (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), 240–41Google Scholar.

125. Ten or eleven because “Robert Wilson” appears in the list both in Chancery Lane and Fleet Street and in Gray's Inn Gate. This is probably the same person, but that is not made clear.

126. Above, n. 109.

127. Above, n. 17.

128. Brooke, Robert, La graunde abridgement (London: Richard Tottel, 1573)Google Scholar.

129. Bacon's reading was on the Statutes of Uses 1536 (stat. 27 Hen.VIII c.10), one of the most popular choices for early-modern readers with eighteen readings given between 1536 and 1634 (Baker, Readers and Readings, lviii).

130. Love, Scribal Publication, 9–22 and 73–76.

131. Millstone similarly links legal and parliamentary speeches as part of “a list of forbidden bestsellers of pre-revolutionary England,” which circulated in manuscript (Millstone, Manuscript Circulation, 3).

132. [Fuller, Thomas], Ephemeris parliamentaria, or, A Faithfull Register of the Transactions In Parliament in the Third And Fourth Years of the Reign Of Our Late Sovereign Lord, King Charles (London: printed for John Williams and Francis Eglesfield, 1654), sig. ¶¶Google Scholar.

133. Baker and Ringrose, Catalogue of English Legal Manuscripts, 24, observing that “[t]he manuscripts in other libraries are too numerous to list here.”

134. Millstone, Manuscript Circulation, 264.

135. The arguments of Sir Richard Hutton, Knight, one of the judges of the Common Pleas (London: Miles Flesher and Robert Young, 1641)Google Scholar. Hutton's argument is the second most common to survive in manuscript. The other dissenting judgment, George Croke's, survives in much greater numbers (Millstone, Manuscript Circulation, 267–68).

136. Durham Chapter Library Hunter MS 52, fo. 1, see Hughes, Edward, “A Durham Manuscript of the Common's Debates of 1629,” English Historical Review 74 (1959): 672CrossRefGoogle Scholar. (Hughes describes the relevant text as being on the flyleaf, but the manuscript has since been foliated.) I thank Sarah-Jane Raymond and her colleagues for making the manuscript available to me during extensive works in the library. The purchase information may not be accurate. It is in a different hand from the date on the page, and there is no known W. Walbancke involved in the book trade in 1629.

137. In addition to Francis Bacon's Reading, Matthew Walbancke was also connected with the printing of an abridgment of St. German's Doctor and Student (An Exact Abridgement of that Excellent Treatise Called Doctor and student [London: John Haviland for the assigns of John More, 1630]Google Scholar) described on the title page as to be sold by Matthew Walbancke, and an English version of Perkins's sixteenth-century Profitable Book, which had previously been printed with English title pages, but was never actually printed in English (Perkins, John, A Profitable Booke of Mr John Perkins [London: for Matthew Walbancke, 1642]Google Scholar).

138. A diary, or, An Exact Journall Faithfully Communicating The Most Remarkable Proceedings In Both Houses of Parliament (London: for Matthew Walbancke, 1644–46)Google Scholar.

139. LI MS Maynard 65, see n. 105.

140. See n. 106 for a tentative suggestion that the quality of the text suggests a second-hand manuscript rather than scribal production.

141. For more on the assigns and their business practices see Williams, “Changes to Common Law Printing,” 243–45.

142. On these complicated relationships, see ibid., 245–46.

143. Coke, The First Part, sig. ¶¶^v.

144. According to Joseph Mead in a letter to Sir Richard Stuteville dated November 29, 1628, the Commentarie had recently been published and was “of some 15 or 16 shillings price” (BL MS Hargrave 390, fo. 456). This would make the Commentarie as expensive as a second hand copy of the 1569 printing of Bracton (another very large work), and more expensive than all but three of the law books whose prices are given in a list probably dating between 1616 and 1628 (see Williams, “A Medieval Book,” 51).

145. Coke's Reports also suggest that he frequently addressed different audiences in different parts of the same writing. See nn. 38–40 for evidence that Coke combined texts for the wider public with others for the legal profession in the same work. The prefaces to his Reports show a similar difference in audience. The preface to the Sixth Reports is a response to the Jesuit Robert Parsons's criticisms of Coke's writings for the wider public in the Fifth Reports, whereas the main, law-French, text of the Sixth Reports is directed to common lawyers (Coke, Edward, La Size Part des Reports [London: Societie of Stationers, 1607]Google Scholar).

146. See nn. 66–71.

147. Coke, Edward, The Second Part of the Institutes of the lawes of England (London: Miles Flesher and Robert Young, 1642)Google Scholar; Coke, Edward, The Third Part of the Institutes of the laws of England (London: Miles Flesher, 1644)Google Scholar; and Coke, Edward, The Fourth Part of the Institutes of the laws of England (London: Miles Flesher, 1644)Google Scholar. The preface to the Institutes of Justinian is directed to students of Roman law (Birks, Peter and McLeod, Grant, eds., Justinian's Institutes [London: Duckworth, 1987], 32–33Google Scholar).

148. Williams, “Common Law Scholarship,” 64.

149. Millstone, Manuscript Circulation, 100.

150. BL MS Harl 537, fos. 80–86, and Huntington Library Ellesmere MS 8175. Legal material included Star Chamber proceedings and the Five Knights Case (1628). Star Chamber reports survive predominantly in English language manuscripts; many copies of the Five Knights’ Case also survive in English (for example, CUL MS Ff.3.17, fos. 114–82).

151. Two late sixteenth century law-French collections that seem to be professionally copied are the Errores in Camera Scaccarii and Thomas Coventry's reports. The Errores survive in carefully copied, nearly identical, manuscripts (Ibbetson, David, “Law Reporting in the 1590s,” in Law Reporting in Britain, Proceedings of the Eleventh British Legal History Conference, ed. Stebbings, Chantal [London: Hambledon Press, 1995], 73–88Google Scholar).

152. Manuscripts of Francis Moore's law-French reports may have been commercially copied. Several share an unusual stylistic feature, perhaps suggesting an origin in a single copying house: a black letter (rather than secretary) title or title page in Latin, proclaiming that the reports were taken from the book written in Moore's hand (BL MS Additional 25191, BL MS Harley 4585, BL MS Lansdowne 1059, and Yale Law School MS G.R29.1). Of these manuscripts, BL MS Harley 4585 notes that it was purchased by Robert Paynell for £4 (fo. 1). Paynell was admitted to Gray's Inn in 1619, and the reports were presumably purchased after that date (Bryson, W. H., Robert Paynell's King's Bench Reports [1625–1627] [Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2010], xGoogle Scholar). Paynell's copy also includes a guarantee by the seller, Lawrence Cragge, that the volume included “as many cases & marginall notes as any [book] that I have sould” (BL MS Harley 4585, fo. 453^v). It seems likely that Cragge would only have included such a guarantee if he had been involved in the production of the manuscript, indicating commercial copying.

153. This may explain the very vague description of the common law material available in BL MS Hargrave 311 (see n. 92). The author of the catalogue does not identify the reports or readings with any precision, unlike the various speeches and other legally related material. Perhaps the author did not understand the material (even if in English) or could not read it (if it were in law-French).

154. As Mirow observes, some readings after 1600 were “seemingly produced for written or printed transmission” (Mirow, Matthew, “The Ascent of the Readings: Some Evidence from Readings on Wills,” in Learning the Law: Teaching the Transmission of English Law 1150– 1900, ed. Bush, Jonathan and Wijffels, Alain [London: Hambledon Press, 1999], 238Google Scholar). This statement needs to be qualified: there is no evidence of any reader taking his reading to be printed, and some readings seem to have become more like treatises (at least as surviving in textual form) during the Elizabethan period.

155. This change in the text of readings should not be overemphasized when one is explaining their printing. It certainly seems to apply to Bacon's reading, the only seventeenth century reading to be printed, and the most treatise-like of the printed readings. The Elizabethan readings of Calthrope and Dodderidge are a little more disjointed, but are still coherent texts. Brooke's reading, the earliest to be printed, is more a collection of quite brief notes. Printed legal texts may also have been modeled to some extent on readings. For example, Staunford's Exposicion appears to be modeled on the approach taken in readings on the “statute” Prerogativa Regis (for discussion of similarities and differences between Staunford's Exposicion and readings, see McGlynn, The Royal Prerogative, 225–35).

156. See n. 152. Printed as Moore, Francis, Cases collect and report per Sir Francis Moore chivaler (London: R. Norton, 1663)Google Scholar.

157. See nn. 103–5.

158. Hobart, Reports.

159. See Williams, “Changes to Common Law Printing,” 244.

160. For discussion of the reasons for these breaches, and the lack of enforcement of the patent by the patent-holder, see Williams, “Changes to Common Law Printing,” 239–45.

161. For example, Bernard Alsop and Thomas Fawcett (nn. 16 and 113) and William Cooke (nn. 7, 55, 98, and 114). However, even the printers printing under the patent engaged in some printing of the higher level material in English in the form of Bacon's Maxims, albeit printed with The Use of the Law, which had already been printed in 1629 (Anon, The Use of the Law [London: Bernard Alsop, Thomas Fawcett, Benjamin Fisher, 1629]Google Scholar).

162. Weiss, Adrian, “Casting Compositors, Foul Cases, and Skeletons: Printing in Middleton's Age,” in Thomas Middleton and Early Modern Textual Culture, ed. Taylor, Gary and Lavagnino, John (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 201–2Google Scholar; and Maroti, Arthur F., Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), 282–83Google Scholar.

163. As Brand observes for the printing of John Davies’s reports in Dublin in 1615, it was only the printer's prior government work that meant that he already had black-letter type available and so “did not need to acquire new matrices or type for printing the volume” (Brand, “Sir John Davies,” 11).

164. I have identified four exceptions. The first is Henry Finch's 1613 Nomotechnia (in French). The second and third are two printings of Perkins's Profitable Book in French (London: Societie of Stationers, 1621) and (London: Miles Flesher and Robert Young, 1639). Interestingly, there are two printings of the Profitable Book in 1621, one of which uses black letter (STC 19644), the other uses Roman type (STC 19644.5). It is not clear why this was so. Fourth, Thomas Egerton's Speech in English used Roman type.

165. Of the works cited in this article, only the 1642 printing of Perkins's Profitable Book was in English and black letter. Some of the works mixed black-letter and Roman type (for example, Coke, Little Treatise), but most did not.

166. The Commonwealth, “Act for turning the Books of the Law, and all Proces and Proceedings in Courts of Justice, into English” (November 22, 1650) in Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660, vol. 2, ed. Firth, C. H. and Rait, R. S. (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1911), 455–56Google Scholar.

167. In this respect, the newly printed legal material falls into the same pattern as that seen for scribally produced pamphlets, many of which were printed after 1640 (Millstone, Manuscript Circulation, 319). However, the recourse by printers to scribally circulating legal material began several years earlier than for more politically controversial pamphlets.

168. James Whitelocke, A Learned And Necessary Argument. Wing W1995 and W1995A refer only to Richard Bishop and John Burroughes, but Wing W1995aA has the title page for Bristol.