"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.

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...

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.

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...

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...