Sources of English Legal History: Private Law to 1750

Sources of English Legal History fills the need for a source book illustrating the development of English private law to 1750 and promises to be the definitive work in its area. The book makes available much source material and original documentation that has hitherto been unavailable or inaccessible. It may be used as a companion volume to Baker: An Introduction to English Legal History and Milsom: Historical Foundations of the Common Law. The authors have provided a valuable research tool and reference work for anyone with an interest in the foundations of the common law. Dr J.H. Baker read law at University College, London, attending Professor Milsom's University lectures, and was called to the Bar in 1966. He taught first at University College and moved in 1971 to Cambridge, where he is Fellow of St Catharine's College and (since 1983) Reader in English Legal History. Besides An Introduction to English Legal History (2nd ed., 1979) he has written several other books and many papers in this field, and since 1981 he has been joint Literary Director of the Selden Society. He has also identified many previously unrecognized legal manuscripts, the use and importance of which are illustrated in this volume. Professor S.F.C. Milsom taught law at Cambridge (Trinity) and Oxford (New College) and in 1964 became Professor of Legal History in London University at the London School of Economics. In 1976 he returned to Cambridge as Professor of Law and Fellow of St John's College. He was Literary Director of the Selden Society from 1964 to 1980, and in 1985 became its President. He is Honorary Bencher of Lincoln's Inn and Honorary LL.D of the universities of Glasgow and Chicago. His first research was done at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and he has been visiting professor in the United States many times, most often at the Yale Law School.