Our Legal Heritage, 5th Ed.

Our Legal Heritage, 5th Ed.

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Our Legal Heritage, 5th Ed., by S. A.
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Title: Our Legal Heritage, 5th Ed.
Author: S. A. Reilly
Release Date: September 5, 2004 [EBook #13376]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR
LEGAL HERITAGE, 5TH ED. ***

Copyright (C) 2004 S. A. Reilly

OUR LEGAL HERITAGE
King AEthelbert - King George III, 1776

600 A.D. - 1776

By
S. A. Reilly, Attorney 175 E. Delaware Place Chicago, Illinois
60611-7715 [email protected]

5th Edition
Copyright (C) 2004

Preface
This was written to appreciate what laws have been in existence for a
long time and therefore have proven their success in maintaining a
stable society. Its purpose is also to see the historical context in which
our legal doctrines developed. It includes the inception of the common
law system, which was praised because it made law which was not
handed down by an absolutist king; the origin of the jury system; the
meaning of the Magna Carta provisions in their historical context; and
the emergence of attorneys.
This book is a primer. One may read it without prior knowledge of
history or law, although it will be more meaningful to attorneys than to
others. It can serve as an introduction on which to base further reading
in English legal history. It defines terms unique to English legal history.
However, the meaning of some terms in King Aethelbert's code in
Chapter 1 are unknown or inexact.
In the Table of Contents, the title of each chapter denotes an important
legal development in the given time period for that chapter. Each
chapter is divided into three sections: The Times, The Law, and
Judicial Procedure.

The Times section sets a background and context in which to better
understand the law of that period. The usual subject matter of history
such as battles, wars, royal intrigues, periods of corruption, and
international relations are omitted as not helping to understand the
process of civilization and development of the law. Standard practices
are described, but there are often variations with locality. Also, change
did not come abruptly, but with vacillations, e.g. the change from
pagan to Christian belief and the change to allowance of loans for
interest. The scientific revolution was accepted only slowly. There were
often many attempts made for change before it actually occurred, e.g.
gaining Parliamentary power over the king's privileges, such as
taxation.
The Law section describes the law governing the behavior and conduct
of the populace. It includes law of that time which is the same, similar,
or a building block to the law of today. In earlier times this is both
statutory law and the common law of the courts. The Magna Carta,
which is quoted in Chapter 7, is the first statute of England and is listed
first in the "Statutes of the Realm" and the "Statutes at Large". The law
sections of Chapters 7 - 18 mainly quote or paraphrase most of these
statutes. Excluded are statutes which do not help us understand the
development of our law, such as statutes governing Wales after its
conquest and statutes on succession rights to the throne.
The Judicial Procedure section describes the process of applying the
law and trying cases, and jurisdictions. It also contains some examples
of cases.
For easy comparison, amounts of money expressed in pounds or marks
[Danish denomination] have often been converted to the smaller
denominations of shillings and pence. There are twenty shillings in a
pound. A mark in silver is two-thirds of a pound. Shillings are
abbreviated: "s." There are twelve pennies or pence in a Norman
shilling. Pence are abbreviated "d." Six shillings and two pence is
denoted 6s.2d. A scaett was a coin of silver and copper of lesser
denomination than a shilling. There were no coins of the denomination
of shilling during Anglo-Saxon times.

The sources and reference books from which information was obtained
are listed in a bibliography instead of being contained in tedious
footnotes. There is no index to pages because the electronic text will
print out its pages differently on different computers with different
computer settings. Instead, a word search may be done on the electronic
text.

Dedication and Acknowledgements
A Vassar College faculty member once dedicated her book to her
students, but for whom it would have been written much earlier. This
book