William Blackstone (1723-1780)
In the 1700s, William Blackstone produced his Commentaries on the Laws of England, in which 'the common law's tortuous complexities were outlined in a manner at once authoritative, clear, elegant and even engaging' (Blackstone, Sir William, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (UniMelb access)). Blackstone's work also paved the way for the development of legal treatises which sought to relate the substantive content of law to coherent explanatory principles.
Source: 'Legal Literature in English Common Law' in Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'The influence of Blackstone's Commentaries is difficult to exaggerate. Twenty-three successive English and Irish editions had appeared by 1854, together with a plethora of digests and extracts ... There were translations into French, German, Italian and Russian (vol.1 only), while Blackstone's Commentaries continued to represent England's common law throughout the British imperial diaspora for more than a century after their author's death.'
The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History by Call Number: eBookPublication Date: OUP, 2009
- Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of EnglandFree version of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England at Yale Law Library
Commentaries on Blackstone
A bibliographical catalog of William Blackstone by Call Number: K 30 LAEUPublication Date: 2014, Hein
Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England by Call Number: KL 401 BLACPublication Date: 2001, Cavendish
Re-Interpreting Blackstone's Commentaries by Call Number: KL 401 BLACPublication Date: 2014, Hart Publishing
Blackstone Goes Hollywood
A discussion of Blackstone's Commentaries with Wilfrid Prest of the University of Adelaide and Michael Widener, Rare Book Librarian at Yale Law School. How can Blackstone's life and legacy be understood not in strict chronological terms but rather in terms of plots drawn from standard Hollywood genres?
Abridgments and digests
Most legal literature in the late medieval and early modern periods taught the student how to find and arrange the law, rather than setting out its substance. These included guides to practice and pleadings, including the late-thirteenth-century Brevia placitata (Writs Pleaded) and Anthony Fitzherbert's New Natura Brevium (Nature of Briefs, 1534), and John Lilly's Modern Entries (1723).
From the fifteenth century onward, abridgments of law began to circulate, which digested and organised case law for the student. The Abridgements contained complete statements of the law as it was known at the time, and are arranged by topic, often alphabetically.
Source: 'Legal Literature in English Common Law' in Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History
- Natura breuium(Nature of Briefs, 1534)
- Modern Entries by being a collection of select pleadings in the courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas and Exchequer, viz. Declarations, Pleas in Abatement and in Bar, Replications, Rejoinders, &c. Demurrers, Issues, Verdicts, Judgments, Forms of making up Records of Nisi Prius, and Entring of Judgments, &c. in most Actions. AS Also Special Assignments of Errors, and Writs and Proceedings thereupon, both in the said Courts and in Parliament. With The Method of suing to and reversing Outlawries by Writ of Error or otherwise. To which is added a collection of writs in most cases now in practice. With Two Tables, one of the Names of the Cases; and the other of the Pleadings and WritsPublication Date: 1723
- The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History by Call Number: eBookPublication Date: OUP, 2009
- HeinOnlineAbridgement Collection includes these and many other Abridgements - all available in full text online.
Some of the more well known abridgments include those listed below.
Henry Bracton De Legibus Et Consuetudinibus Angliae (approx 1250) "attempts to describe rationally the whole of English law, a task that was not again undertaken until Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England in the eighteenth century. The work is remarkable both for its wealth of detail and for its attempts to make sense out of English law largely in terms of the ius commune, the combination of Roman and canon law that was taught in the universities in Bracton's time."
Source: Bracton Online.
- Bracton Onlinecan be browsed or searched in either English or Latin, or accessed via a "Calendar" (table of contents)
- Henrici de Bracton byCollection available online via HeinOnline
Anthony Fitzherbert La Graunde Abridgement (first edition approx 1514) is a massive digest of 13,845 cases from the year-books arranged under alphabetical headings.
- Anthony Fitzherbert - Catalogue ResultsVarious editions are available through the University catalogue
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'Sir Anthony Fitzherbert'
Robert Brooke La Graunde Abridgement (approx 1573) contains "over 20,000 entries digested under a wider range of titles, and had useful marginal notes guiding the reader more readily to the contents. Contemporaries found it easier to use than Fitzherbert, and it is still a valuable reference tool. Although the abridgement was primarily derived from the medieval year-books, Broke added a number of cases from his own observation, some statutes and other sources, and even a few extracts from readings in the inns of court."
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'Sir Robert Brooke'
- Robert Brooke - Catalogue ResultsVarious editions are available through the University catalogue
Edward Coke Institutes of the Laws of England (approx 1628) is one of the most influential jurisprudential work of the seventeenth century, which contained his commentary on Littleton's Tenures. Coke's jurisprudence is not set out as a continuous argument but is to be found in his isolated observations in his glosses on the medieval text.
- Edward Coke - Catalogue ResultsVarious editions are available through the University catalogue, titled Institutes of the Laws of England
- UMKC School of Law Digital CollectionA browsable and searchable collection of Edward Coke's Institutes and reports from the Leon E. Bloch Law Library, University of Missouri.
Matthew Hale
- The history and analysis of the common law of England byA History and Analysis of the Common Law of England (first edition 1713) is "a comprehensive treatment of its topic, though much of its length is taken up with the story of the law's development. It is notable for a Burkean account of the wisdom of a customary law, and for a temperate defence of the system's continuity across the Norman conquest. The Analysis at its conclusion is a complete taxonomy of matters handled by the common law; it was borrowed by William Blackstone with minimal modification and therefore provides the structure of Blackstone's Commentaries.
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'Sir Mathew Hale'
Thomas Wood
- HeinOnlineInstitute of the Laws of England (approx 1720) is available through HeinOnline (UniMelb access)
Matthew Bacon
- A new abridgement of the law byCall Number: UniM Law RB
- HeinOnline'A new abridgment of the law'
Charles Viner A general abridgment of law and equity / Viner's abridgment (approx 1742) is the exhaustive arrangement of legal materials under alphabetical headings, based on the works of his predecessors Robert Brooke and Henry Rolle. It was the most comprehensive attempt to render accessible the legal materials of the period.
- A general abridgment of law and equity byCall Number: UniM Law RB falphabetically digested under proper titles, with notes and references to the whole
- HeinOnlineA general abridgment of law and equity / Viner's abridgment
- Eighteenth Century Collections OnlineA general abridgment of law and equity / Viner's abridgment
John Comyns Digest of the laws of England (first edition approx 1762)
- HeinOnlineJohn Comyns Digest of the laws of England
William Blackstone Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769) (see column to left).
Other resources
- HeinOnlineAbove books available online.
~ Bibliography of Early English Law Books / Joseph H. Beale (1926)
~ Chief Sources of English Legal History / by Percy H. Winfield (1925)
Dictionaries
Contemporary dictionaries support a wide range of scholarship involving the meaning of a word or phrase, as well as the development of the meanings of works and phrases over time.
- Digital Dictionaries: 1481 -1916Georgetown Law Library's online collection of dictionaries, Digital Dictionaries: 1481 -1916 provides digitized facsimilies of legal dictionaries dating from 1575 to the early years of the 20th centur
Manual of Law French by
Most English legal texts before 1600, and many from the seventeenth century are written in law French, a dialect which differs considerably both from current French and from old Norman French. Only two guides to law French were published , one in 1701 and the other in 1779: both were full of errors and omissions. This current manual is a revised and considerably enlarged version of the first edition which was published in 1779, the first law French manual to appear since the eighteenth century. The manual is the only current guide to the law French used in English law books between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, an essential reference tool for law libraries, students and practitioners of English legal history. This manual is a revised and considerably enlarged version of the 1979 edition. It is the only current guide to the law French used in English law books between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, and is an essential reference tool for law libraries, students and practitioners of English legal history.
Call Number: K 126 L3 BAKE GD11ISBN: 0859677451Publication Date: 1990-01-04
- The Three Languages of English Lawin J H Baker, The common law tradition: lawyers, books and the law
UK Legal Treatises
- Making of modern law : Legal treatises 1800-1926Provides digital images on every page of 22,000 legal treatises on US and British law published from 1800 through 1926. Full-text searching on more than 10 million pages provides researchers access to critical legal history in ways not previously possible.
Other sources of legal scholarship can be found in the following databases:
- Selden Society Publications and the History of Early English LawThe Selden Society was founded in 1887 to encourage the study and advance the knowledge of the history of English law. The Selden Society researches and studies the history of the law, development of legal ideas, the legal profession, the courts, judges and lawyers, literature and legal records, English common law and the legal system. Provides access to early English legal history manuscripts and yearbooks.
- Eighteenth Century Collections OnlineThis full text collection is an ongoing project based on The English Short Title Catalogue, a machine-readable union list of the holdings of the British Library, as well as those from more than 1,500 university, private and public libraries worldwide. Works published in the UK during the 18th century plus thousands from elsewhere. It has over 180,000 titles (200,000 volumes) and includes books, pamphlets, essays, broadsides and more. Primarily in English - also includes other languages.
- Early English Books OnlineEarly English Books Online (EEBO) contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700 - from the first book printed in English by William Caxton, through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare and the tumult of the English Civil War. EEBO is enhanced by the Text Creation Partnership making it possible to search the full text of a book and read a transcription of the text.
- Gale Primary SourcesThe Gale Primary Sources (formerly titled Artemis) research platform allows users to cross-search Gale's digital archive collections. The platform features Subject Indexing to aid content discovery across collections, Term Frequency which can suggest the importance of particular concepts during given periods, and Term Clusters which displays terms that commonly occur in relation to a search term.
- First edition of Halsbury's Laws of EnglandHalsbury's Laws of England provides an encyclopedic arrangement of the law in essay form. The first edition of Halsbury's Laws of England (1907-1917) has been digitised and made freely available online.