Introduction to English Legal History

Fully revised and updated, this classic text provides the authoritative introduction to the history of the English common law. The book traces the development of the principal features of English legal institutions and doctrines from Anglo-Saxon times to the present and, combined with Baker and Milsom's Sources of Legal History, offers invaluable insights into the development of the common law of persons, obligations, and property, and also of criminal and public law. It is an essential reference point for all lawyers, historians and students seeking to understand the evolution of English law over a millennium. The book provides an introduction to the main characteristics, institutions, and doctrines of English law over the longer term - particularly the evolution of the common law before the extensive statutory changes and regulatory regimes of the last two centuries. It explores how legal change was brought about in the common law and how judges and lawyers managed to square evolution with respect for inherited wisdom.

Part one 1: Law and Custom before 1066 2: The Common Law of England 3: The Superior Courts of Common Law 4: The Forms of Action 5: The Jury and Pleading 6: The Court of Chancery and Equity 7: The Conciliar Courts 8: The Ecclesiastical Courts 9: Judicial Review of Decisions 10: The Legal Profession 11: Legal Literature 12: Law Making Part two 13: Real Property: Feudal Tenure 14: Real Property: Uses and Fiscal Feudalism 15: Real Property: Inheritance and Estates 16: Real Property: Family Settlements 17: Other Interests in Land 18: Contract: Covenant and Debt 19: Contract: Assumpsit and Deceit 20: Contract: Some Later Developments 21: Quasi-Contract 22: Property in Chattels Personal 23: Negligence 24: Nuisance 25: Defamation 26: Economic Torts 27: Persons: Status and Liberty 28: Persons: Marriage and its Consequences 29: Pleas of the Crown: Criminal Procedure 30: Pleas of the Crown: The Substantive Criminal Law Appendix I Appendix II