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  3. Cambridge Studies in English Legal History

Cambridge Studies in English Legal History began publication in 1921, and now includes some fifty volumes. It has always been under the general editorship of a member of the cambridge Law Faculty - since 1987 Professor J. H. Baker - and has concentrated on lawyers' aspects of legal history, both doctrinal and institutional. Over the last thirty years the series has included studies of the Courts of Exchequer, Requests, and Delegates, the Privy Council, and County Courts, and the Assizes; the earliest royal judges; attorneys and solicitors in the early modern period; law reform under the Commonwealth and the Victorian era; the effect of the Reformation on English ecclesiastical law; and biographical studies of Lord Ellesmere, Lord Stowell, Lord Eldon and Dr Lushington. The works on substantive legal history include two important contributions to our understanding of medieval land law, one concerning the feudal framework of the common law and the other the origin and early practice of entails; essays on marriage settlements, negotiable instruments, evidence, and copyright; and a study of the legal theory of medieval common lawyers. The earlier volumes, which include some edited texts, have attained classic status and have been reprinted in facsimile by Wm M. Gaunt & Sons, Inc., of Florida.

  • General Editors: J. H. Baker, St Catharine's College, Cambridge

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36 results in Cambridge Studies in English Legal History

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The Inns of Court under Elizabeth I and the Early Stuarts
  • 1590–1640
  • 2nd edition
  • Wilfrid R. Prest
  • Published online:
    15 January 2023
    Print publication:
    05 January 2023
  • The Tudor and Stuart inns of court were major centres of learning and literature, as well as professional associations of practising lawyers. This book sketches the evolution of the inns from their medieval origins and traces the dramatic impact of the societies' rapid expansion through the Elizabethan era and beyond. Prest's comprehensive study based on original sources surveys the structure and functions of the inns, outlining key aspects, from tensions between junior and senior members to the nature and effectiveness of their educational role. Its lively prose locates the inns within the cultural, political, religious, and social context of Shakespearean and pre-civil war England. This corrected and revised second edition of a classic work addresses recent scholarship on the early modern inns of court and includes a new chapter introducing the book to twenty-first-century readers.

Tying the Knot
  • Rebecca Probert
  • Published online:
    10 September 2021
    Print publication:
    23 September 2021
  • The Marriage Act 1836 established the foundations of modern marriage law, allowing couples to marry in register offices and non-Anglican places of worship for the first time. Rebecca Probert draws on an exceptionally wide range of primary sources to provide the first detailed examination of marriage legislation, social practice, and their mutual interplay, from 1836 through to the unanticipated demands of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. She analyses how and why the law has evolved, closely interrogating the parliamentary and societal debates behind legislation. She demonstrates how people have chosen to marry and how those choices have changed, and evaluates how far the law has been help or hindrance in enabling couples to marry in ways that reflect their beliefs, be they religious or secular. In an era of individual choice and multiculturalism, Tying the Knot sign posts possible ways in which future legislators might avoid the pitfalls of the past.

Maintenance in Medieval England
  • Jonathan Rose
  • Published online:
    08 June 2017
    Print publication:
    22 June 2017
  • This is the first book covering those who abused and misused the legal system in medieval England and the initial attempts of the Anglo-American legal system to deal with these forms of legal corruption. Maintenance, in the sense of intermeddling in another person's litigation, was a source of repeated complaint in medieval England. This book reveals for the first time what actually transpired in the resultant litigation. Extensive study of the primary sources shows that the statutes prohibiting maintenance did not achieve their objectives because legal proceedings were rarely brought against those targeted by the statutes: the great and the powerful. Illegal maintenance was less extensive than frequently asserted because medieval judges recognized a number of valid justifications for intermeddling in litigation. Further, the book casts doubt on the effectiveness of the statutory regulation of livery. This is a treasure trove for legal historians, literature scholars, lawyers, and academic libraries.

The Reinvention of Magna Carta 1216–1616
  • John Baker
  • Published online:
    09 February 2017
    Print publication:
    26 January 2017
  • This new account of the influence of Magna Carta on the development of English public law is based largely on unpublished manuscripts. The story was discontinuous. Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries the charter was practically a spent force. Late-medieval law lectures gave no hint of its later importance, and even in the 1550s a commentary on Magna Carta by William Fleetwood was still cast in the late-medieval mould. Constitutional issues rarely surfaced in the courts. But a new impetus was given to chapter 29 in 1581 by the 'Puritan' barrister Robert Snagge, and by the speeches and tracts of his colleagues, and by 1587 it was being exploited by lawyers in a variety of contexts. Edward Coke seized on the new learning at once. He made extensive claims for chapter 29 while at the bar, linking it with habeas corpus, and then as a judge (1606–16) he deployed it with effect in challenging encroachments on the common law. The book ends in 1616 with the lectures of Francis Ashley, summarising the new learning, and (a few weeks later) Coke's dismissal for defending too vigorously the liberty of the subject under the common law.

Insurance in Elizabethan England
  • The London Code
  • Guido Rossi
  • Published online:
    21 January 2017
    Print publication:
    15 December 2016
  • English insurance came into being almost entirely during the Elizabethan period. However, the Great Fire of 1666 consumed most of London's mercantile document, and therefore little is known about early English insurance. Using new archival material, this study provides the first in-depth analysis of early English insurance. It focuses on a crucial yet little-known text, the London Insurance Code of the early 1580s, and shows how London insurance customs were first imported from Italy, then influenced by the Dutch, and finally shaped in a systematic fashion in that Insurance Code. The London Insurance Code was in turn heavily influenced by coeval continental codes. This deep influence attests the strong links between English and European insurance, and questions the common/civil law divide on the history of commercial law.

The Law of Contract 1670–1870
  • Warren Swain
  • Published online:
    05 February 2015
    Print publication:
    12 February 2015
  • The foundations for modern contract law were laid between 1670 and 1870. Rather than advancing a purely chronological account, this examination of the development of contract law doctrine in England during that time explores key themes in order to better understand the drivers of legal change. These themes include the relationship between lawyers and merchants, the role of equity, the place of statute, and the part played by legal literature. Developments are considered in the context of the legal system of the time and through those who were involved in litigation as lawyers, judges, jurors or litigants. It concludes that the way in which contract law developed was complex. Legal change was often uneven and slow, and some of the apparent changes had deep roots in the past. Clashes between conservative and more reformist tendencies were not uncommon.

A History of Tort Law 1900–1950
  • Paul Mitchell
  • Published online:
    05 December 2014
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015
  • Many of the defining features of the modern law of tort can be traced to the first half of the twentieth century, but, until now, developments in that period have never received a dedicated historical examination. This book examines both common law and statutory innovations, paying special attention to underlying assumptions about the operation of society, the function of tort law, and the roles of those involved in legal changes. It recovers the legal and social contexts in which some landmark decisions were given (and which puts those decisions in a very different light) and draws attention to significant and suggestive cases that have fallen into neglect. It also explores the theoretical debates of the period about the nature of tort law, and reveals the fascinating patterns of influence and power at work behind statutory initiatives to reform the law.

Sir Edward Coke and the Reformation of the Laws
  • Religion, Politics and Jurisprudence, 1578–1616
  • David Chan Smith
  • Published online:
    05 November 2014
    Print publication:
    06 November 2014
  • Throughout his early career, Sir Edward Coke joined many of his contemporaries in his concern about the uncertainty of the common law. Coke attributed this uncertainty to the ignorance and entrepreneurship of practitioners, litigants, and other users of legal power whose actions eroded confidence in the law. Working to limit their behaviours, Coke also simultaneously sought to strengthen royal authority and the Reformation settlement. Yet the tensions in his thought led him into conflict with James I, who had accepted many of the criticisms of the common law. Sir Edward Coke and the Reformation of the Laws reframes the origins of Coke's legal thought within the context of law reform and provides a new interpretation of his early career, the development of his legal thought, and the path from royalism to opposition in the turbulent decades leading up to the English civil wars.

Law and Politics in Jacobean England
  • The Tracts of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere
  • Louis A. Knafla
  • Published online:
    05 January 2012
    Print publication:
    22 September 1977
  • This study is devoted chiefly to Ellesmere's career and writings as Lord Chancellor, 1603–1617. After an introduction to his life and career from 1541 to 1603, Part One is a study of his role in the legal and political history of Jacobean England. In order to place the analysis of law and politics in a broader context, topics discussed include economics, religion, social customs and thought, in addition to questions concerning the forms of action at common law, disputes between the courts, law and equity, and the political activities of Parliament, the Privy Council, and the Crown. Part Two consists of a critical edition of eight of Ellesmere's little known or unidentified tracts on the royal prerogative, Anglo-Scots Union, the Parliament of 1604–1610, the administration of government, law reform, the ecclesiastical courts, Coke's Law Reports and the Chancery-Common Law conflict.

The Common Lawyers of Pre-Reformation England
  • Thomas Kebell: A Case Study
  • E. W. Ives
  • Published online:
    05 November 2011
    Print publication:
    07 April 1983
  • The English common lawyers wielded their greatest influence in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, with names like Fortescue, Littleton and More. In these years they were more than the only organized lay profession: in the infancy of statute, they, more than anyone, shaped and changed the law; they were the managerial elite of the country; they were the single most dynamic group in society. This book is a study of their formative impact on the whole of English life. Part I examines the legal profession, its position, recruitment, training and career structure, taking as an example the career of Thomas Kebell, a serjeant at-law from Leicestershire, for whom documentation is unusually complete. Part II analyses legal practice: how the lawyer acquired and kept clients, his relationship with them, the pattern of employment, the nature of practice as revealed in the year books, and the attitudes and approaches of the lawyer to the law. The third part considers the impact of the lawyers on substantive law and legal organization.

Marriage Settlements, 1601–1740
  • The Adoption of the Strict Settlement
  • Lloyd Bonfield
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    23 June 1983
  • The history of the family has become an area of great interest, yet the property arrangements entered into upon marriage, a crucial aspect of the process of familial wealth transmission and distribution in the landed classes in early modern England, have never been systematically studied. In the light of evidence provided by hitherto unused family muniments, Dr Bonfield analyses the legal, social and economic aspects of these settlements, and discusses the development and impact of the strict settlement.

The English Judiciary in the Age of Glanvill and Bracton c.1176-1239
  • Ralph V. Turner
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    15 August 1985
  • This book presents a study of the evolution of a professional judiciary in medieval England through the careers of forty-nine royal justices from the last decade of Henry II until 1239. Those years were crucial for the growth of the common law, producing the two legal treatises Glanvill and Bracton. The period also represents a critical phase in the growth of a professional civil service for England. Professor Turner's study plots the shifts from unspecialized multipurpose royal servants to corps of specialists, concentrating on one sphere. By using the method known as prosopography, the author succeeds in bringing vague outlines of the early royal justices into sharper focus. Although they played a major role in the shaping of English common law, little biographical material has been available. This study, by looking at the judges collectively, succeeds in overcoming the scarcity of sources on individuals and presents a composite picture.

A History of English Assizes 1558–1714
  • J. S. Cockburn
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    07 September 1972
  • This book is primarily an account of the most familiar and longest lived of English courts during the most critical as well as the most influential period of its history. It describes all aspects of the court's work, personnel, jurisdiction, and constitutional position, throws incidental light on the nature of local administration and government, and examines the thesis that the function of assizes was governmental – as a main channel of communication between central government and provincial authority – as well as being judicial.

The Equity Side of the Exchequer
  • W. H. Bryson
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    06 November 1975
  • The court of the exchequer, which was the ancient court of tax claims, assumed an equity jurisdiction in the sixteenth century which continued until 1841. This book describes the rise, development and abolition of this part of the court. Professor Bryson begins with a discussion of the rise of the equity side of the court during the reign of Henry VIII or Edward VI and its rapid growth under Elizabeth I. This is followed by a note on the generalizing of its jurisdiction at the beginning of the Interregnum. The third chapter deals with the duties of the principal officers - the lord treasurer, the chancellor of the exchequer, the barons of the exchequer, the king's remembrances, and the eight sworn clerks. The fourth chapter traces the equity procedures and describes the archives, which are now in the Public Record Office in London. This chapter will be useful to those who wish to compare this court with another court of equity or to use the exchequer records. Chapter 5 sets out the reasons for the suppression of the equity jurisdiction. This book supplies important information for the lawyer, the historian and the archivist.

History of the Law of Charity, 1532-1827
  • Gareth Jones
  • Published online:
    07 October 2011
    Print publication:
    02 July 1969
  • This book covers the period from the Reformation to the end of Lord Eldon's Chancellorship when the modern law of charity had taken a definite shape. Mr Jones shows how the contemporary religious, economic and social pressures moulded the substantive law and illustrates the importance of procedural considerations in defining the limits of legal charity.

Law Courts and Lawyers in the City of London 1300–1550
  • Penny Tucker
  • Published online:
    04 August 2010
    Print publication:
    18 January 2007
  • Between 1300 and 1550, London's courts were the most important English lay law courts outside Westminster. They served the most active and innovative of the local jurisdictions in which custom combined with the common law to produce different legal remedies from those contemporaneously available in the central courts. More importantly for the long term, not only did London's practices affect other local courts, but they influenced the development of the national common law, and quite possibly the development of the legal profession itself. This 2007 book provides a detailed account, accessible to non-legal historians, of the administration of the law by the medieval and early modern city of London. In analysing the workings of London's laws and law courts and the careers of those who worked in them, it shows how that administration, and those involved in it, helped to shape the modern English law.

The Legal Framework of English Feudalism
  • The Maitland Lectures given in 1972
  • S.F.C. Milsom
  • Published online:
    04 May 2010
    Print publication:
    05 August 1976
  • Professor Milsom works out a fresh view of the beginnings of the common law concerning land. The received picture depends upon progressive assumptions: key words began with their later meanings; the law began with abstract ideas of property; a tenant's title to his tenement was never subject to his lord's control; the lord had no discretion, only the power to decide disputes according to external criteria; jurisdiction in that sense was all the lord lost as royal remedies developed; and all the tenant gained was better protection of unaltered rights. It is a picture of procedural changes taking place against an unchanging background, with the feudal structure at the beginning almost as insubstantial as it was to be at the end.

Marriage Law and Practice in the Long Eighteenth Century
  • A Reassessment
  • Rebecca Probert
  • Published online:
    10 February 2010
    Print publication:
    02 July 2009
  • This book uses a wide range of primary sources - legal, literary and demographic - to provide a radical reassessment of eighteenth-century marriage. It disproves the widespread assumption that couples married simply by exchanging consent, demonstrating that such exchanges were regarded merely as contracts to marry and that marriage in church was almost universal outside London. It shows how the Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753 was primarily intended to prevent clergymen operating out of London's Fleet prison from conducting marriages, and that it was successful in so doing. It also refutes the idea that the 1753 Act was harsh or strictly interpreted, illustrating the courts' pragmatic approach. Finally, it establishes that only a few non-Anglicans married according to their own rites before the Act; while afterwards most - save the exempted Quakers and Jews - similarly married in church. In short, eighteenth-century couples complied with whatever the law required for a valid marriage.

Medieval English Conveyances
  • J. M. Kaye
  • Published online:
    29 January 2010
    Print publication:
    01 October 2009
  • This study of the documents used in medieval England for the creation and transfer of interests in real property is the first book devoted exclusively to the subject since the publication of Thomas Madox's Formulare Anglicanum in 1702. The transactions covered include grants in fee and in perpetual alms, leases for life and for years, exchanges, surrenders and releases. Analysis of each kind of transaction is partly by way of commentary on the formulae of deeds, selected from the many thousands found in published cartularies and collections, and partly by relating the deeds to the relevant law of their periods, as found in early treatises, decided cases and the Year Books. The aim is to enable readers to identify and categorise deeds accurately, to appreciate their legal effects and to note instances where the practice of conveyancers and their clients differed from what is supposed to have been the law.

The Rise and Fall of the English Ecclesiastical Courts, 1500–1860
  • R. B. Outhwaite
  • Foreword by Richard H. Helmholz
  • Published online:
    21 January 2010
    Print publication:
    18 January 2007
  • The first history of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in England that covers the period up to the removal of principal subjects inherited from the Middle Ages. Probate, marriage and divorce, tithes, defamation, and disciplinary prosecutions involving the laity are all covered. All disappeared from the church's courts during the mid-nineteenth century, and were taken over by the royal courts. The book traces the steps and reasons - large and small - by which this occurred.

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