David Ibbetson – författare

The English law of obligations has developed over most of the last millennium without any major discontinuity. Through this period each generation has built on the law of its predecessors, manipulating it so as to avoid its more inconvenient consequences and adapting it piecemeal to social and economic changes. Sometimes fragments borrowed from other jurisdictions have been incorporated into the fabric of English law; from time to time ideas developed elsewhere have, at least temporarily, imposed a measure of structure on a common law otherwise messy and inherently resistant to any stable ordering.In this book David Ibbetson exposes the historical layers beneath the modern rules and principles of contract, tort, and unjust enrichment. Small-scale changes caused by lawyers successfully exploiting procedural advantages in their clients' interest are juxtaposed alongside changes caused by friction along the boundaries of these principal legal categories; fossilized remnants of old doctrines jostle with newer ideas in a state of half-consistent tension; loose-knit rules of equity developed in the Chancery infiltrate themselves into more tightly controlled Common law structures. The result is a system shot through with inconsistencies and illogicalities, but with the resilience to adapt as necessary to take account of shifting pressures and changing circumstances.

The English law of obligations has developed over most of the last millennium without any major discontinuity. Through this period each generation has built on the law of its predecessors, manipulating it so as to avoid its more inconvenient consequences and adapting it piecemeal to social and economic changes. Sometimes fragments borrowed from other jurisdiction have been incorporated into the fabric of English law; from time to time ideas developed elsewhere have, at least temporarily, imposed a measure of structure on a common law otherwise messy and inherently resistant to any stable ordering. In this book David Ibbetson exposes the historical layers beneath the modern rules and principles of contract, tort, and unjust enrichment. Small-scale changes caused by lawyers successfully exploiting procedural advantages in their clients' interest are juxtaposed alongside changes caused by friction along the boundaries of these principal legal categories; fossilized remnants of old doctrines jostle with newer ideas in a state of half-consistent tension; loose-knit rules of equity developed in the Chancery infiltrate themselves into more tightly controlled Common law structures. The result is a system shot through with inconsistencies and illogicalities, but with the resilience to adapt as necessary to take account of shifting pressures and changing circumstances.

This three-volume set contains the results of the second and final stage of an AHRC-funded project which aims to examine the nature of legal development in Western Europe since 1850, focusing on liability for fault. By bringing together experts with different disciplinary backgrounds - comparative lawyers and legal historians, all with an understanding of modern tort law in their own systems - and getting them to work collaboratively, the books produce a more nuanced comparative legal history and one which is theoretically better informed. Also available, the six-volume set containing the results of the first stage of this project.

The Cambridge Comparative History of Ancient Law is the first of its kind in the field of comparative ancient legal history. Written collaboratively by a dedicated team of international experts, each chapter offers a new framing and understanding of key legal concepts, practices and historical contexts across five major legal traditions of the ancient world. Stretching chronologically across more than three and a half millennia, from the earliest, very fragmentary, proto-cuneiform tablets (3200-3000 BCE) to the Tang Code of 652 CE, the volume challenges earlier comparative histories of ancient law / societies, at the same time as opening up new areas for future scholarship across a wealth of surviving ancient Near Eastern, Indian, Chinese, Greek and Roman primary source evidence. Topics covered include 'law as text', legal science, inter-polity relations, law and the state, law and religion, legal procedure, personal status and the family, crime, property and contract.

This collection of papers from the Twentieth British Legal History Conference explores the relationship between substantive law and the way in which it actually worked. Instead of looking at what the courts said they were doing, it is concerned more with the reality of what was happening. To that end, the authors use a wide range of sources, from court records to merchants' diaries and lawyers' letters. The way in which the sources are used reflects the possibilities of legal historical research which are opening up in the twenty-first century, as large databases and digitised images - and even online auction sites - make it a practical possibility to do work at a level which was almost unthinkable only a short time ago.

What shapes the development of a legal system? The economy? Legal ideas? Social and political movements? Drawing on the other eight volumes in the series, European Legal Development: The Case of Tort aims to challenge conventional comparative law explanations of the factors that shape the law. It goes further into ideas that law could be conceived as either driven by external factors or is primarily the product of deliberations among lawyers. Choosing the examples of product and medical liabilities, the book considers the convergence of developments across legal systems. By contrast, examining road accidents and relations between neighbours, it notes areas in which the development of tort law has diverged. Tort law emerges as only part of the legal response and its place depends on the activity of the legislator, as much as on judicial and scholarly ideas about the place of fault liability within the schemes of compensation.

This volume honours the work and writings of Professor Sir John Baker over the past fifty years, presenting a collection of essays by leading scholars on topics relating to the sources of English legal history, the study of which Sir John has so much advanced. The essays range from the twelfth century to the nineteenth, considering courts (central and local), the professions (both common law and civilian), legal doctrine, learning, practice, and language, and the cataloguing of legal manuscripts. The sources addressed include court records, reports of litigation (in print and in manuscript), abridgements, fee books and accounts, conveyances and legal images. The volume advances understanding of the history of the common law and its sources, and by bringing together essays on a range of topics, approaches and periods, underlines the richness of material available for the study of the history of English law and indicates avenues for future research.