There are some stories that need to be told anew to every generation. This book tells one such story. It explores the historical origins of the common law and explains why that story needs to be understood by all who study or come into contact with English law. The book functions as the prequel to what students learn during their law degrees or for the SQE. It can be read in preparation for, or as part of, modules introducing the study of English law or as a starting point for specialist modules on legal history or aspects of legal history. This book will not only help students understand and contextualise their study of the current law but it will also show them that the options they have to change the law are greater than they might assume from just studying the current law.

Water resources were central to England's precocious economic development in the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, and then again in the industrial, transport, and urban revolutions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Each of these periods saw a great deal of legal conflict over water rights, often between domestic, agricultural, and manufacturing interests competing for access to flowing water. From 1750 the common-law courts developed a large but unstable body of legal doctrine, specifying strong property rights in flowing water attached to riparian possession, and also limited rights to surface and underground waters. The new water doctrines were built from older concepts of common goods and the natural rights of ownership, deriving from Roman and Civilian law, together with the English sources of Bracton and Blackstone. Water law is one of the most Romanesque parts of English law, demonstrating the extent to which Common and Civilian law have commingled. Water law stands as a refutation of the still-common belief that English and European law parted ways irreversibly in the twelfth century. Getzler also describes the economic as well as the legal history of water use from early times, and examines the classical problem of the relationship between law and economic development. He suggests that water law was shaped both by the impact of technological innovations and by economic ideology, but above all by legalism.

Firmly anchored in social science concepts, the second edition of The American Legal System demonstrates the relationships among private law, the business legal environment, and public law issues, as well as related subjects of interest. This fifteen-chapter book is divided into three parts. Part I places the legal system in a political perspective centering on the origins of the law, schools of jurisprudence, branches and functions of law, legitimacy of law, how the judiciary functions in the federal system of government, and judicial interpretation and decision making. Part II contrasts legal processes: civil suits for money damages, criminal processes, equity justice, administrative processes, and alternative dispute resolution. Part III centers on the legal norms or rules governing both civil and criminal conduct, property law, family law, contract law, and government regulation of business. Throughout, the text features edited court opinions--many new to this edition--illustrating lively and thought-provoking controversies that are certain to spark student interest. Among the many compelling issues addressed are the legal and constitutional controversies surrounding the Bush Administration's "War on Terror," and the socially explosive developments concerning same-sex marriage. In addition, each chapter includes at least three comparative notes showing how other legal cultures in different nation-states treat legal matters. A wealth of pedagogical features--chapter-opening objectives; key terms, names, and concepts; a glossary, discussion questions, and appendices--are included to aid student comprehension. The authors have prepared an Instructor's Manual and Test Bank to facilitate the book's use in the classroom.

This volume is a collection of essays written by Samuel E. Thorne, former legal historian and professor at the Harvard Law School. Professor Thorne was considered an authority on English legal history and common law up to the 12th century. Bringing together essays on topics such as Henry I's coronation charter, English feudalism, the early history of the Inns of Court, sovereignty and the conflict of laws and Tudor social transformation, as well as the life and writings of key figures such as Henry de Bracton and Sir Edward Coke, this collection is the essential companion to Professor Thorne's work in the field.

This Handbook triangulates the disciplines of history, legal history, and literature to produce a new, interdisciplinary framework for the study of early modern England. Scholars of early modern English literature and history have increasingly found that an understanding of how people in the past thought about and used the law is key to understanding early modern familial and social relations as well as important aspects of the political revolution and the emergence of capitalism. Judicial or forensic rhetoric has been shown to foster new habits of literary composition (poetry and drama) and new processes of fact-finding and evidence evaluation. In addition, the post-Reformation jurisdictional dominance of the common law produced new ways of drawing the boundaries between private conscience and public accountability. Accordingly, historians, critics, and legal historians come together in this Handbook to develop accounts of the past that are attentive to the legally purposeful or fictional shaping of events in the historical archive. They also contribute to a transformation of our understanding of the place of forensic modes of inquiry in the creation of imaginative fiction and drama. Chapters in the Handbook approach, from a diversity of perspectives, topics including forensic rhetoric, humanist and legal education, Inns of Court revels, drama, poetry, emblem books, marriage and divorce, witchcraft, contract, property, imagination, oaths, evidence, community, local government, legal reform, libel, censorship, authorship, torture, slavery, liberty, due process, the nation state, colonialism, and empire.

Marke, Julius J., Editor. A Catalogue of the Law Collection at New York University With Selected Annotations. New York: The Law Center of New York University, 1953. xxxi, 1372 pp. Reprinted 1999 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. LCCN 99-19939. ISBN 1-886363-91-9. Cloth. $195. * Reprint of the massive, well-annotated catalogue compiled by the librarian of the School of Law at New York University. Classifies approximately 15,000 works excluding foreign law, by Sources of the Law, History of Law and its Institutions, Public and Private Law, Comparative Law, Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law, Political and Economic Theory, Trials, Biography, Law and Literature, Periodicals and Serials and Reference Material. With a thorough subject and author index. This reference volume will be of continuous value to the legal scholar and bibliographer, due not only to the works included but to the authoritative annotations, often citing more than one source. Besterman, A World Bibliography of Bibliographies 3461.

Cheshire, Fifoot and Furmston's Law of Contract stands as one of the classic textbooks on contract law more than 50 years after the publication of the first edition. Michael Furmston combines an authoritative account of the principles of the law of contract with thought-provoking analysis and insights, and the clarity of the narrative brings understanding of complex contractual issues to a wider readership. Each topic is clearly signposted for ease of navigation, and the text contains numerous references to additional primary and secondary sources to take the reader even further into the subject. The text is invaluable to students reading courses in contract, the law of obligations, and common law. It is also of real use to students of other disciplines needing a clear overview of the law of contract, and is often used as a first point of reference for practitioners. Online Resource Centre Student resources: - Annual updates- Web links