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1. Manor Rolls.
Manuscript on paper
and vellum, written 1283-1452.
Displayed is a selection form some sixty manor rolls from the manor of
Chartley (Staffordshire) dating from 1283 to 1416, and from the manor of
Littleton-Pannel (Wiltshire), dating from 1329 to 1452.
HLS Manor Rolls 144-151.
2. Letters patent.
Manuscript on
vellum, dated 11 April 1408.
Letters patent to John Norys of Canterbury
and others that they may give in mortmain to the prior and convent of Christ Church,
Canterbury,
three messuages (i.e. three dwelling houses, together with
outlying buildings, attached gardens and the surrounding land). The wax
seal is the Great Seal of Henry IV.
HLS Deed 744.
3. Corpus juris
civilis: Codex cum glossis et tabula.
Manuscript on vellum, written ca. 1275, with nine historiated miniatures
and 500 illuminated grotesque initials.
Soon after his accession in 518, Justinian appointed a commission to
collect and codify existing Roman law. A second commission, headed by the jurist
Tribonian, was appointed in 530 to select matter of permanent value from
the works of the jurists, to edit it and to arrange it into 50 books. In
533 this commission produced the Digesta.
The four books of the Institutiones were also published in
533. They form an introductory textbook of Roman law. In 534 the Commission
published the Codex Justiniani, a compilation of material
from imperial decisions and enactments. These three works, along with the Novellae,
a collection of laws promulgated after the Codex, constitute
the Corpus juris civilis, the source of law and judicial
reasoning for much of Europe from the c12
onwards.
The Codex of the Corpus juris civilis comprises the
codification of Roman law current under Justinian. Book V, title I of the Codex
(displayed here) addresses betrothal, betrothal pledges, and marriage
brokers; the first two laws of this title make clear how much independence
of action Roman law granted women in contracting marriage.
- She who is
already betrothed to one man is not forbidden to break her contract,
and marry another
- If a man
should, while residing in the same province agree to marry a young
woman and fail to do so within the term of two years, and the woman,
after the expiration of the said time, should afterwards form a union
with another, she will not be guilty of fraud who, by contracting
marriage, did no longer suffer her vows to be treated with contempt.
The Law School’s Manuscript 63 is important
for both its later marginal notes and its many illustrations, remarkable
examples of c13 Anglo-French art.
HLS MS 63.
4. Ranulf de
Glanvill. Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Angliae.
Manuscript parchment
roll: 7 x 116 inches; composed of 7 folia sewn top to bottom; text on both
sides. Late c13/early c14.
The earliest treatise on the common law is traditionally attributed to
Ranulf de Glanvill (d. 1190), but it was probably written by someone in his
circle --Hubert Walter and Geoffrey Fitzpeter have both been suggested. The
treatise seems to have been completed sometime between 1187 and 1189, and
describes procedure in the central royal court. It is divided into 14 books
and contains much information relating to litigation, including forms for
some 80 writs.
This particular manuscript is remarkable for being a very late example
of the use of the roll, rather than the codex, for recording a text. The
Law Library’s copy belongs to the earlier, alpha family of Glanvill
manuscripts. The roll is incomplete, beginning with the last line of Book I
Ch. 29, On the essoin of being on a pilgrimage, and ends in the
middle of Book IX Ch. 1, Concerning homages and reliefs.
HLS MS 180.
5. Henry de Bracton. De
legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae.
Manuscript on vellum, written about
1300, probably at Worcester.
The outstanding common-law treatise
of the Middle Ages, Bracton’s De legibus is remarkable for
its use of actual court decisions for illustrative purposes. It appears to
have been written by a number of authors beginning in the 1220’s, with the
last work being done on it by Bracton, perhaps when he was a judge of the
King’s Bench in the period between 1247 and 1257.
There are approximately 49 surviving
manuscripts of Bracton, many fragmentary or abridged. All date from the c14
or very late c13, and none is closer than third generation
from the original.
The Harvard
Law School
copy, corrected and annotated in a contemporary hand, contains, in the
margins, numerous citations to Devonshire
cases during the reign of Edward I (1272-1307).
HLS MS 1.
6. Magna Carta cum statutis.
Manuscript on
vellum, with illuminated initials and three marginal drawings in black ink,
written in the early c14.
This manuscript contains the Magna
Carta and statutes of the c13. The illuminated initials allude to
the subject of each statute.
Of particular interest are the three
marginal drawings: a hunting scene, which illustrates La chartre de
foreste; a widow, illustrating Le statute de Merton; and (shown
here) a scene of homage for the statute de homage et faute. This
last statute states that “when a freeman shall do homage to his lord
whom he holdeth in chief, he shall hold his hands together between the
hands of his lord...”
It has been argued that this
manuscript originally formed part of a larger manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque
Nationale Ms. Fr. 571) which was commissioned by Phillipa of Hainault for
Edward III, on the occasion of their marriage in 1326.
HLS MS 12.
7. Magna Carta cum statutis.
Manuscript on
vellum, written circa 1300.
This is an exceptionally fine example
of a portable “working” manuscript. The original binding is doeskin over
birch, with traces of the original red dye on the inner covers.
HLS MS 175.
8. Registrum brevium.
Manuscript on
parchment and paper, written ca. 1380, with later additions.
Begun in the c14, this manuscript
compilation of the forms of writs was in use through the end of the c16,
new material being added to the blank folios left at the end of each
chapter.
Manuscript collections of writs are
known from the c13. All are individual, the later copies containing more
forms than the earlier ones. There was probably no single, still less,
official compilation of writs. This variety and growth ended with the first
printed Registrum brevium (London: Rastell, 1531).
HLS MS 155.
9. Registrum brevium and Novae narrationes.
Manuscript on
vellum, with illuminated initials, written in the early c14.
This manuscript, like HLS MS 175,
is a pocket “working” copy of two basic legal texts: a collection of writs,
the Registrum brevium, and the Novae narrationes,
a tract on pleading, dating from the first half of the c14.
This particular manuscript is
remarkable for the unusually fine quality of the writing and of the vellum.
Shown is the first page of the Novae narrationes.
HLS MS 60.
10. Year books 4-11 Edward III
(1329-1337).
Manuscript on
vellum, written ca. 1340, in the original binding of doeskin over wooden
boards.
A series of notes of debates on
points of pleading, the year books are important sources for the history of
medieval English law. It is not known when the first year books were
compiled, but some cases are believed to date from the 1270’s. The series
continued almost without interruption until 1535.
The compilers of the year books are
unknown; it is generally considered that the compilations are based upon
notes taken by law students in court. Whoever made them, they certainly
were carefully studied by both students and practicing lawyers looking for
guidance in pleading cases. The intensely practical nature of the year
books is illustrated by the underlinings, corrections and marginal notes
displayed on these two pages.
HLS MS 4.
11. Year books 7-13 Edward III
(1332-1338).
Manuscript on
vellum, written ca. 1350.
The manuscript covers much of the
same period as HLS MS 4, but does not have extensive marginal notes.
This suggests that manuscript year books were circulated outside of the
narrow circle of pleaders and judges in the central royal courts.
HLS MS 5.
12. Novae narrationes and Abridgement of the year books.
Manuscript on vellum, written in the
c15.
Originally bound in one volume,
perhaps for use at assizes, this manuscript was separated into four smaller
volumes when it was conserved at the Northeast Document
Conservation Center. Shown are fragments of the original
sewing, the paper covers, binding waste and photographs of the manuscript
in its original condition.
HLS MS 41.
13. Year book 9 Edward IV (1469)
(London: Richard Pynson, 1490?).
William de Machlinia printed the first
year book in about 1483, some ten years after the introduction of printing
into England.
Richard Pynson, however, was the first systematic publisher of year books,
issuing some ninety separate editions between 1490 and 1528. This edition
of 9 Edward IV is the first year book published by Pynson.
Beale R 287.
14. Thomas Littleton. Tenores
novelli.
(London : Johannes Lettou and William de Machlinia, ca. 1482?).
This is a copy of the first edition
of the first printed English legal treatise. There are only nine surviving
copies known of this edition; this scarcity reflects the work’s popularity
and importance. The Law Library’s copy has both extensive contemporary and
early marginal notes.
Johannes Lettou was a bookbinder as
well as a printer, and this copy is the only known example of a book both
printed and bound by Lettou.
Beale T 3.
15. Anthony Fitzherbert. La
graunde abbregement de le ley.
(London: John Rastell, 1516) Vol. 1 of the
first edition.
The earliest abridgement of the year
books was printed in about 1495 and is attributed to Nicholas Statham.
Anthony Fitzherbert, however, is responsible for the first scientific and
systematic abridgement of English case law. Fitzherbert abridged over
14,000 cases--many of them from now-lost manuscripts--under 260 titles.
Beale R 456.
16. Henry de Bracton. De legibus
et consuetudinibus Angliae.
(London: Richard Tottel, 1569)
A copy of the first printed edition
of Bracton. The as-of-yet-unidentified editor, who signs himself “T.
N.,” claims to have compared twelve manuscripts when he prepared this
printed edition. His collation, however, was not done critically. Rather
than attempting to establish a text as close as possible to the original, “T.
N.” was more concerned with publishing everything and anything which
might have any claims of having been written by Bracton.
Beale T 323.
17. Les reports de Serjeant Bendlowes.
Manuscript on paper,
written circa 1630.
This manuscript contains a portion of
the reports of William Bendlowes, a serjeant at law. It records 238
numbered cases, from Fulgam’s Case (entered T.31 Hen. 8) to Lee
v. Major, (M. 4 & 5 Ph. & M.).
Although by the c17 printing was well
established, numerous manuscripts like this one show that legal material
continued to circulate in manuscript long after the invention of printing.
Bendlowes’s Reports did not appear in print until 1689, four
years after his death.
HLS MS 119.
18. William Chapple. Notebook.
Manuscript on paper
written during the Old Bailey Sessions, May 1741.
HLS MS 153* is a typical judge’s “long” notebook,
written from inside to fore-edge and vice versa. In it William Chapple, a
justice of the King’s Bench, recorded arguments and evidence from the
sessions at Old Bailey, over which he presided during the Lent Circuit of
1740/41.
HLS Ms 153*
19. The proceedings at the
Sessions of the Peace, and Oyer and Terminer, for the city of London and
county of Middlesex on Thursday the 14th, Friday the 15th, and Saturday the
16th of May... Number V for the year 1741.
(London: 1741)
Compare the published account of the
trial of Elizabeth Bennet, charged with killing her infant daughter, with
Judge Chapple’s manuscript notes on the case.
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