A Natural History of the Common Law

Nonfiction, History, Civilization, Reference & Language, Law
Cover of the book A Natural History of the Common Law by S. F. C. Milsom, Columbia University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: S. F. C. Milsom ISBN: 9780231503495
Publisher: Columbia University Press Publication: December 3, 2003
Imprint: Columbia University Press Language: English
Author: S. F. C. Milsom
ISBN: 9780231503495
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publication: December 3, 2003
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Language: English

How does law come to be stated as substantive rules, and then how does it change? In this collection of discussions from the James S. Carpentier Lectures in legal history and criticism, one of Britain's most acclaimed legal historians S. F. C. Milsom focuses on the development of English common law—the intellectually coherent system of substantive rules that courts bring to bear on the particular facts of individual cases—from which American law was to grow. Milsom discusses the differences between the development of land law and that of other kinds of law and, in the latter case, how procedural changes allowed substantive rules first to be stated and then to be circumvented. He examines the invisibility of early legal change and how adjustment to conditions was hidden behind such things as the changing meaning of words.

Milsom points out that legal history may be more prone than other kinds of history to serious anachronism. Nobody ever states his assumptions, and a legal writer, addressing his contemporaries, never provided a glossary to warn future historians against attributing their own meanings to his words and therefore their own assumptions to his world. Formal continuity has enabled nineteenth-century assumptions to be carried back, in some respects as far back as the twelfth century. This book brings together Milsom's efforts to understand the uncomfortable changes that lie beneath that comforting formal surface. Those changes were too large to have been intended by anyone at the time and too slow to be perceived by historians working within the short periods now imposed by historical convention. The law was made not by great men making great decisions but by man-sized men unconcerned with the future and thinking only about their own immediate everyday difficulties. King Henry II, for example, did not intend the changes attributed to him in either land law or criminal law; the draftsman of De Donis did not mean to create the entail; nobody ever dreamed up a fiction with intent to change the law.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

How does law come to be stated as substantive rules, and then how does it change? In this collection of discussions from the James S. Carpentier Lectures in legal history and criticism, one of Britain's most acclaimed legal historians S. F. C. Milsom focuses on the development of English common law—the intellectually coherent system of substantive rules that courts bring to bear on the particular facts of individual cases—from which American law was to grow. Milsom discusses the differences between the development of land law and that of other kinds of law and, in the latter case, how procedural changes allowed substantive rules first to be stated and then to be circumvented. He examines the invisibility of early legal change and how adjustment to conditions was hidden behind such things as the changing meaning of words.

Milsom points out that legal history may be more prone than other kinds of history to serious anachronism. Nobody ever states his assumptions, and a legal writer, addressing his contemporaries, never provided a glossary to warn future historians against attributing their own meanings to his words and therefore their own assumptions to his world. Formal continuity has enabled nineteenth-century assumptions to be carried back, in some respects as far back as the twelfth century. This book brings together Milsom's efforts to understand the uncomfortable changes that lie beneath that comforting formal surface. Those changes were too large to have been intended by anyone at the time and too slow to be perceived by historians working within the short periods now imposed by historical convention. The law was made not by great men making great decisions but by man-sized men unconcerned with the future and thinking only about their own immediate everyday difficulties. King Henry II, for example, did not intend the changes attributed to him in either land law or criminal law; the draftsman of De Donis did not mean to create the entail; nobody ever dreamed up a fiction with intent to change the law.

More books from Columbia University Press

Cover of the book International Politics and Film by S. F. C. Milsom
Cover of the book Genes and DNA by S. F. C. Milsom
Cover of the book Ground Zero, Nagasaki by S. F. C. Milsom
Cover of the book Hollywood's Censor by S. F. C. Milsom
Cover of the book Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown by S. F. C. Milsom
Cover of the book Hollywood's Dirtiest Secret by S. F. C. Milsom
Cover of the book Homecomings by S. F. C. Milsom
Cover of the book Jews and the American Religious Landscape by S. F. C. Milsom
Cover of the book Staging Chinese Revolution by S. F. C. Milsom
Cover of the book Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy by S. F. C. Milsom
Cover of the book Cinema in the Digital Age by S. F. C. Milsom
Cover of the book Contesting Citizenship by S. F. C. Milsom
Cover of the book The Mystique of Transmission by S. F. C. Milsom
Cover of the book Sebald's Vision by S. F. C. Milsom
Cover of the book LoveKnowledge by S. F. C. Milsom
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy