The first full-length account of the establishment of the County Court in England and Wales in 1846 and its work, through to its reconstruction in 1971. It traces its development from being largely a debt collection agency to its far wider jurisdiction today as the main forum for civil disputes. Drawing on a wide range of sources, the author describes its organization and officers and discusses the roles of lawyers and lay persons. Given the current controversy over access to justice, this is a timely new history.

This study of the documents used in medieval England for the creation and transfer of interests in real property is the first book devoted exclusively to the subject since the publication of Thomas Madox's Formulare Anglicanum in 1702. The transactions covered include grants in fee and in perpetual alms, leases for life and for years, exchanges, surrenders and releases. Analysis of each kind of transaction is partly by way of commentary on the formulae of deeds, selected from the many thousands found in published cartularies and collections, and partly by relating the deeds to the relevant...