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Essays on medieval law, including a number of comparative studies on England and the low countries.
This book provides a challenging interpretation of the emergence of the common law in Anglo-Norman England, against the background of the general development of legal institutions in Europe. In a detailed discussion of the emergence of the central courts and the common law they administered, the author traces the rise of the writ system and the growth of the jury system in twelfth-century England. Professor van Caenegem attempts to explain why English law is so different from that on the Continent and why this divergence began in the twelfth century, arguing that chance and chronological accident played the major part and led to the paradox of a feudal law of continental origin becoming one of the most typical manifestations of English life and thought. First published in 1973, The Birth of the English Common Law has come to enjoy classical status, and in a preface Professor van Caenegem discusses some recent developments in the study of English law under the Norman and earliest Angevin kings.
R. C. van Caenegem considers the historical reasons behind European legal diversity.
This book provides an introduction to the rise and development of present-day private law.
Professor van Caenegem's new book addresses fundamental questions of constitutional organization--democracy versus autocracy, unitary versus federal organization, pluralism versus intolerance--by analyzing different models of constitutional government through a historical perspective. The approach is chronological: constitutionalism is explained as the result of many centuries of trial and error through a narrative that begins in the early Middle Ages and concludes with contemporary debates, focusing on Europe, the United States, and the Soviet Union.
In Judges, legislators and professors one of the world's foremost legal historians shows how and why continental and common law have come to diverge so sharply. Using ten specific examples he investigates the development of European law, not as the manifestation of certain ideological and intellectual trends, but as largely the result of power struggles between the judiciary, the legislators, and legal scholars, each representing certain political and social ambitions. Now available in paperback, Judges, legislators and professors provides an historical introduction to continental law which is readily accessible to readers familiar with the common law tradition and vice-versa.
During the Anglo-Norman period a concept of law developed, binding ruler and ruled alike and which was based on custom common throughout the country. This was Common Law and it was from this that subsequent law developed. John Hudson's text is an introductory survey of Common Law for students and other non-specialist readers. Certain aspects of medieval law such as its feuds, its ordeals and its outlaws are well known, this text shows how these aspects fitted in to the system as a whole, considers its Anglo-Saxon origins, the influence of the Norman invaders and later administrative reforms. The events and legal processes also throw light on the society, politics and thought of the times.