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.

In this original reinterpretation of the legal status of foreigners in medieval England, Keechang Kim proposes a radically new understanding of the genesis of the modern legal regime and the important distinction between citizens and noncitizens. Making full use of medieval and early modern sources, the book examines how feudal legal arguments were transformed by the political theology of the Middle Ages to become the basis of the modern legal outlook. This innovative study will interest academics, lawyers, and students of legal history, immigration and minority issues.

Originally published in 1953, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the Court of Wards and Liveries. The court was established on 1540 as a means of administering the system of feudal dues, it was additionally responsible for wardship and livery issues. Formally abolished in 1660, the court had previously ceased to have a function due to the abolition of feudal tenures by the Long Parliament in 1646. Consummately researched, the text was compiled by the author during a period of employment by the Public Record Office, this allowed for extensive access to the Court's records and other...

Focusing on one text, Prerogativa Regis, this book examines legal education at the Inns of Court in the late fifteenth/early sixteenth century through surviving lecture notes. It demonstrates the ways in which the law developed from generation to generation; the points of contention within and between generations, and the ways in which the general knowledge of the legal profession was utilized and refined. It also considers whether the lawyers' treatment of this charged topic was affected by political pressures from outside the Inns.

In The Law of Evidence in Victorian England, Christopher Allen provides a fascinating account of the political, social and intellectual influences on the development of evidence law during the Victorian period. His book convincingly challenges the traditional view of the significance of Bentham's critique of the state of contemporary evidence law, and describes instead the extent to which ongoing common law developments had already anticipated many of the improvements for which Bentham has usually been credited as the instigator.

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...

Magna Carta was largely ineffective for practical purposes between the fourteenth century and the sixteenth, late-medieval law lectures giving no hint of its later importance. A treatise by William Fleetwood (c.1558) was still in the traditional mould, but the lectures of the 'Puritan' barrister and MP Robert Snagge in 1581, and the speeches and tracts of his colleagues, advocated new uses for it. After centuries of oblivion, in 1587 there were eight reported cases in which chapter 29 was cited. Sir Edward Coke made extensive claims for chapter 29, linking it with habeas corpus, and then as a...

Identifying for the first time the true nature of maintenance, this study uses primary sources to reach new findings on its lawfulness.

This book challenges conventional assumptions about the afterlife of Magna Carta and tells a new story.