English Legal History to 1776
Spring 2012
This course surveys English law from the middle ages to the 18th century. During class meetings mixing lecture and discussion, we will concentrate on how social and political forces transformed law. Law will thus be understood as a variety of social experience and as a manifestation of cultural change, not as an autonomous realm of thought and practice. We will look at competition among jurisdictions and the development of the legal profession as well as at developments of some of the modern categories of legal practice: property, contracts, trespass, and crime.
In addition to an extensive collection of medieval and early modern legal case materials, readings may include the following:
J.H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History (4th ed.)
Mary Bilder, The Transatlantic Constitution: Colonial Legal Culture and the Empire
Amy Louise Erickson, Women and Property in Early Modern England
