"Fee tails" were a 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, and the origins of a reliable legal mechanism for the destruction of individual entails, the common recovery.

This book tells one part of the long history of the institution of marriage. Questions concerning the formation and annulment of marriage came under the exclusive jurisdiction of the church courts during the Middle Ages. Drawing on unpublished records of these courts, Professor Helmholz describes the practical side of matrimonial jurisdiction and relates it to his outline of the formal law of marriage. He investigates the nature of the cases heard, the procedure used, the people involved and changes over the period covered, all of which add to what is known about marriage and legal practice...

In studying the dynamics of populations, whether of animals, plants or cells, it is crucial to allow for intrinsic delays, due to such things as gestation, maturation or transport. This book is concerned with one of the fundamental questions in the analysis of the effect of delays, namely determining whether they effect the stability of steady states. The analysis is presented for one or two such delays treated both as discrete, where an event which occurred at a precise time in the past has an effect now, and distributed, where the delay is averaged over the population's history. Both of...

This study traces the history of the law of bills and notes in England from medieval times to the period in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when bills played a central role in the domestic and international financial system. It challenges the traditional theory that English commercial law developed by incorporation of the concept of negotiability and other rules from an ancient body of customary law known as the law merchant. Rogers shows that the law of bills was developed within the common law system itself, in response to changing economic and business practices. This...

This study traces the history of the law of bills and notes in England from medieval times to the period in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when bills played a central role in the domestic and international financial system. It challenges the traditional theory that English commercial law developed by incorporation of the concept of negotiability and other rules from an ancient body of customary law known as the law merchant. Rogers shows that the law of bills was developed within the common law system itself, in response to changing economic and business practices. This...

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...

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. Clearly and elegantly written, this study is both a companion to and development of Maitland's celebrated Roman Canon Law in Medieval England. It will be of great interest not only to legal and ecclesiastical specialists but to any reader seeking a wider understanding of the constitutional and...

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,...

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...

Talfourd's Copyright Bill was first presented in 1837, and the public and Parliamentary controversy it provoked is reflected in contemporary pamphlets, correspondence, and hundreds of petitions presented to Parliament, as well as in the changing aims of the Bill. This book explores and sets in context the making of the Copyright Act of 1842, using it to illuminate enduring issues and difficulties in the legal concept of intellectual property. A unique feature for legal historians is Appendix II in which Dr. Seville traces the progress of eleven versions of the Bill.