The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I
Cambridge and Boston: Cambridge University Press and Little, Brown & Company, 1895.
First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. Scarce first edition (American issue, with Little, Brown at foot of spines) of this classic of legal scholarship. Two volumes in publisher's blue cloth, 9.5" x 6.5", pp. xxxviii, 678; xii, 684, with an index in Volume II. Extremities rubbed, corners lightly bumped, internally sound and clean. In his book Inventing the Middle Ages, historian Norman F. Cantor called this comprehensive study, "one of the truly great pieces of historical literature of all time." As described by a modern publisher, it "expanded the work of Sir Edward Coke and William Blackstone by exploring the origins of key aspects of English common law and society and with them the development of individual rights as these were gradually carved out from the authority of the Crown and the Church....[It] is still considered an accessible and useful foundational reference for scholars of medieval English law.Volume one begins with an examination of Anglo-Saxon law, goes on to consider the changes in law introduced by the Normans, then moves to the twelfth-century "Age of Glanvill," with the first great compilation of English laws and customs, followed by the thirteenth-century "Age of Bracton," author of another major treatise on the same subject. Volume two takes up different areas of English law topic by topic, or as its authors labeled it, "The Doctrines of English Law in the Early Middle Ages." They consider land tenure, marriage and wardship, fealty, the ranks of men both free and unfree, aliens, Jews, excommunicates, women, and the churches and the King, before turning to the various jurisdictions of that decentralized era."
Item #23014
Price: $750.00