English Legal History and its Sources: Essays in Honour of Sir John Baker

Description

This volume honours the work and writings of Professor Sir John Baker over the past fifty years, presenting a collection of essays by leading scholars on topics relating to the sources of English legal history, the study of which Sir John has so much advanced. The essays range from the twelfth century to the nineteenth, considering courts (central and local), the professions (both common law and civilian), legal doctrine, learning, practice, and language, and the cataloguing of legal manuscripts. The sources addressed include court records, reports of litigation (in print and in manuscript), abridgements, fee books and accounts, conveyances and legal images. The volume advances understanding of the history of the common law and its sources, and by bringing together essays on a range of topics, approaches and periods, underlines the richness of material available for the study of the history of English law and indicates avenues for future research.

David Ibbetson has been Regius Professor of Civil Law in the University of Cambridge since 2000, and is Co-Director of the Centre for English Legal History at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of A Historical Introduction to the Law of Obligations (1999) and has published on a wide range of subjects in the legal history of England and elsewhere. He is a recipient of the American Society for Legal History's Surrency and Sutherland Prizes. Neil Jones is Reader in English Legal History at the University of Cambridge, Co-Director of the Centre for English Legal History at the University of Cambridge, and Literary Director of the Selden Society. He writes on the history of English law in the early-modern period, with a particular emphasis upon equity and the law of real property. He is a recipient of the Selden Society's David Yale Prize, and of the American Society for Legal History's Sutherland Prize. Nigel Ramsay is a former senior research fellow in the history departments of University College London and the University of Oxford and in the law department of the University of Exeter. He has written on medieval and Tudor legal history, religious history (especially monasticism), art history and heraldry. He is at present preparing an edition of the medieval records of the Court of Chivalry for the Selden Society.

'The results speak for themselves: the papers collected here, ranging from the 12th to the 19th century, draw upon extensive new archival work, and will be of interest to a readership well beyond the ranks of the specialist legal historians ... The inherent interest of the essays gathered here aside, scholars everywhere will be grateful to those among the contributors who have generously made sets of data available to others as appendices to their essays.' Hannes Kleineke, Parliamentary History