John H. Baker - Böcker

Fee tails were a basic building block for family landholding from the end of the thirteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century. The classic entail was an interest in land which was inalienable and could only pass at death by inheritance to the lineal heirs of the original grantee. Biancalana's study considers the origins, development and use of the entail in later medieval England, and the origins and early use of a reliable legal mechanism for the destruction of individual entails, the common recovery. He untangles the complex history surrounding medieval landholding in this detailed study of the fee tail, the product of extensive research in original sources. This book includes an extensive index of over three hundred common recoveries with discussions of their transactional contexts. A major work which will interest lawyers and historians.

In this book one of the world's foremost legal historians draws upon the evidence of the canon law, court records and the English common-law system to demonstrate the extent to which, contrary to received wisdom, Roman canon law survived in England after the upheavals of the Protestant Reformation. R. H. Helmholz provides an extensive examination of the manuscript records of the ecclesiastical courts and professional literature of the English civilians. Rebutting the views of Maitland and others, he shows how English looked to the Continent for guidance and authority in administering the system of justice they had inherited from the Middle Ages. Intellectual links between England and the Continent are shown to have survived the Reformation and the abolition of papal jurisdiction. The extent to which papal material was still used in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries will interest all readers and surprise many.

Sir Henry Maine died in 1888 and since then his ideas have been used by lawyers, historians, sociologists and many others. This is the first book to concentrate upon what he said about the law itself, and, as such, it explores the pioneering work Maine did in explaining law not by reference to abstract analysis but by placing it firmly in its social and historical context. Instead of concentrating on concepts such as sovereignty he looked at the realities of law as it was practised by professionals and experienced by laymen. The result was a controversial achievement stressing the reforming duties of jurists and citizens at times of social change. This is neither a conventional biography nor an abstract analysis of Maine's thought, but a demonstration of the contemporary context and significance of his views.

In this book one of the world's foremost legal historians draws upon the evidence of the canon law, court records and the English common-law system to demonstrate the extent to which, contrary to received wisdom, Roman canon law survived in England after the upheavals of the Protestant Reformation. R. H. Helmholz provides an extensive examination of the manuscript records of the ecclesiastical courts and professional literature of the English civilians. Rebutting the views of Maitland and others, he shows how English looked to the Continent for guidance and authority in administering the system of justice they had inherited from the Middle Ages. Intellectual links between England and the Continent are shown to have survived the Reformation and the abolition of papal jurisdiction. The extent to which papal material was still used in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries will interest all readers and surprise many.

Professor Bellamy places the theory of treason in its political setting and analyses the part it played in the development of legal and political thought in this period. He pays particular attention to the Statute of Treason of 1352, an act with a notable effect on later constitutional history and which, in the opinion of Edward Coke, had a legal importance second only to that of Magna Carta. He traces the English law of treason to Roman and Germanic origins, and discusses the development of royal attitudes towards rebellion, the judicial procedures used to try and condemn suspected traitors, and the interaction of the law of treason and constitutional ideas.

Sir William Scott's thirty years as judge of the High Court of Admiralty provide the basis of his reputation as the greatest of civilian (as opposed to common) lawyers. In this major study, the first for over seventy years, Professor Bourguignon analyzes his work as judge of the admiralty court in the light of the little-known, unpublished body of law which had been developed prior to his appointment. His term of office coincided with the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, and thus Scott had to bear and determine hundreds of cases involving the capture of vessels in time of war. These prize cases provided Scott with the opportunity to state and develop many aspects of the international law of war, especially the law of neutral and belligerent rights at sea. He also influenced the development of admiralty law in the cases, which he heard of private disputes concerning maritime commerce.

This 1999 book was the first full-length account of the county court, which in contemporary English life has become the main forum for most civil disputes. It began as the 'poor man's court', largely concerned with the pursuit of working-class debtors; but, as this book shows, it has expanded far beyond its origins as an agency `for the more easy recovery of small debts' and now includes in its jurisdiction a diverse range of matters, including housing, accidents and consumer goods. Drawing on a wide range of sources, the author traces the history of the county court from its creation in 1846 through to the reconstruction of the court system in 1971. He describes its organisation and officers, from judges to bailiffs, and discusses the roles of judges, practising lawyers and lay persons. The text is an intriguing engagement with themes including access to justice.

Fee tails were a basic building block for family landholding from the end of the thirteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century. The classic entail was an interest in land which was inalienable and could only pass at death by inheritance to the lineal heirs of the original grantee. Biancalana's study considers the origins, development and use of the entail in later medieval England, and the origins and early use of a reliable legal mechanism for the destruction of individual entails, the common recovery. He untangles the complex history surrounding medieval landholding in this detailed study of the fee tail, the product of extensive research in original sources. This book includes an extensive index of over three hundred common recoveries with discussions of their transactional contexts. A major work which will interest lawyers and historians.

Historians have long recognized that members of the lower branch of the legal profession, the ancestors of the modern solicitors, played an important part in early modern English society, but difficulties in establishing their identities and recovering their career patterns have hitherto left them virtually unstudied. This work charts the massive sixteenth-century increase in central court litigation and offers an explanation of it largely in terms of social change and the decline of local jurisdictions. At the same time, it argues that the period witnessed a major turning point in the relationship between the legal profession and English society. The number of practitioners in the lower branch who were associated with the legal institutions of London grew to such an extent that by 1640 the ratio of lawyers to population was not much different from that in the early twentieth century. Although this tremendous growth in the amount of legal business and the number of legal practitioners created some serious administrative problems, the commonly held view that the lower branch in this period was largely untrained, dishonest, and uncontrolled is no more than a myth.

This study presents a full account of Sheppard's employment under Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate as well as an examination of his family background and education, his religious commitment to John Owen's party of Independents and his legal philosophy. An appraisal of all Sheppard's legal works, including those written during the Civil War and the Restoration period, illustrates the overlapping concerns with law reform, religion and politics in his generation. Sheppard had impressively consistent goals for the reform of English law and his prescient proposals anticipate the reforms ultimately adopted in the nineteenth century, culminating in the Judicature Acts of 1875-8. Dr Matthews examines the relative importance of Sheppard's books to his generation and to legal literature in general. The study provides a full bibliography of Sheppard's legal and religious works and an appendix of the sources Sheppard used in the composition of his books on the law.