Francis Moore's Reading on The Statute of Charitable Uses

1967 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-238
Author(s):  
Gareth Jones
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Land Law ◽  
Edward Iii ◽  
Magna Carta ◽  
The Common ◽  
Medieval Law ◽  
Law Student

The reading was an integral part of the education of the medieval law student, and a necessary exercise for the utter barrister who cast covetous eyes to the Bench of his Inn, the Order of the Coif and a judgeship in the Common Pleas or King's Bench. At one time each reader discoursed on one of the “old” statutes before Edward III (especially Magna Carta, Merton, Marlborough, Westminster I, Gloucester and Westminster II) but during the sixteenth century readers acquired a wider range of choice; so Coke and Bacon were to read on the Statute of Uses 1535 and Moore on the Statute of Charitable Uses 1601. The “antient readings” are said to have served the apprentices well, particularly as an introduction to the dark intricacies of medieval land law. Coke esteemed them as having five excellent qualities:First, they declared what the common law was before the making of the statute, as here it appeareth. Secondly, they opened the true sense and meaning of the statute. Thirdly, their cases were briefe, having at the most one poynt of the common law and another upon the statute. Fourthly, plaine and perspicuous, for then the honour of the reader was to excell others in authorities, arguments, and reasons for proofe of his opinion, and for confutation of the objections against it. Fifthly, they read, to suppresse subtill inventions to creepe out of the statute.How more favourable than their modern counterparts, mused Coke, whichhaving lost the said former qualities, have lost also their former authorities: for now the cases are long, obscure, and intricate, full of new conceits, liker rather to riddles than lectures, which when they are opened they vanish away like smoke, and the readers are like to lapwings, who seeme to bee neerest their nests, when they are farthest from them, and all their studie is to find nice evasions out of the statute.

scholarly journals THE PROBLEM OF THE NON-JUSTICIABILITY OF RELIGIOUS DEFAMATIONS

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 241-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Smith
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Civil Case ◽  
Magna Carta ◽  
The Common ◽  
English Law

English law has long held the principle that religions should be free from interference by the state in certain matters. The original 1215 edition of the Magna Carta proclaimed, as its first article, ‘THAT WE HAVE GRANTED TO GOD, and by this present charter have confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired.’This article was intended to protect the established Catholic Church from the powers of the state, specifically from interference in church elections by the executive in the form of the person of the monarch. The notion that religions were institutions with practices and beliefs that were outside the control of the state in certain respects was adopted by the common law and is found in modern times in the principle of non-justiciability on the matter of religion in certain types of civil case. 

1. The English origins

2021 ◽  
pp. 7-17
Author(s):  
Amanda L. Tyler
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Habeas Corpus ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Simple Idea ◽  
Magna Carta ◽  
The Common

This chapter traces the origins of the common law writ of habeas corpus, finding that it was born out of a simple idea: the need to serve the king and demand justification for the detention of one of his subjects. It was not so much for those courts to question the king himself, for he could do no wrong. This chapter details how all of this changed over the course of the seventeenth century, and specifically the important role that the English Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 played in this shift. As is also explored, Parliament’s objectives in passing the Habeas Corpus Act sprang from its intention to expand its power at the expense of the king much more so than a desire to protect individual liberty. But in time, Blackstone and others came to praise the Act as a “second Magna Carta” for curtailing the detention of so-called “state prisoners.”

A new lease of life for Donatio Mortis Causa?

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (7) ◽  
pp. 613-619
Author(s):  
Sue Farran ◽  
Russell Hewitson
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
New Developments ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Law Student

Abstract Coronavirus has thrown the world into disarray. New developments and contingency measures are being adopted on a daily basis. New legislation has been adopted to regulate people’s lives. As every law student learns, equity developed to address the inadequacies of the common law and achieve justice when to deny it would be unconscionable. Ideally, all those confronting the possibility of death from this virus would have had the time and resources to draw up a will. The reality is that many will not have had either. This article considers the equitable institution of Donatio Mortis Causa and its relevance in the current crisis.

Legal Dilemmas

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Herzog
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Law ◽  
Star Chamber ◽  
Tort Claims

The chapter launches with Star Chamber proceedings against Lewis Pickering: in the sixteenth century, defaming the dead could be a crime. And that remains true even in today’s United States. But as the common law sharpened the distinction between tort and crime, it rejected the view that such defamation could be a tort. Tort claims extinguished when either plaintiff or defendant died. And when aggrieved survivors sued, the law held they hadn’t been wronged, even if they had been harmed, so they couldn’t recover, either.

Dr. Cowell

1968 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jocelyn Simon
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Charles I ◽  
The Common

The beginning of the sixteenth century saw a grave constitutional conflict, ending in a revolution—a conflict and revolution in which lawyers became principal actors. “In the hands of Coke the Common Law forged the axe which beheaded Charles I.” Dr. Cowell, Master of Trinity Hall from 1598 to 1611, played a leading part in that conflict—though on the losing side.

‘Allowable or not?’ John Stokesley, the court of requests and royal justice in sixteenth-century England

2020 ◽  
Vol 93 (262) ◽  
pp. 621-637
Author(s):  
Laura Flannigan
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
English Court ◽  
The Common

Abstract In 1523 the theologian John Stokesley was dismissed as a judge in the English court of requests following an investigation by the royal council. This article reconsiders the significance of this episode as part of continuous efforts to define royal justice across the sixteenth century. Grounded in unprecedentedly detailed research in the early Requests archive, the article studies the business and personnel of Requests before, during and after Stokesley’s presidency. It demonstrates that Stokesley’s indiscretions probably undermined the principles of royal justice and required amendment. But this was no simple victory for the common law over extra-legal, equitable justice.

scholarly journals South Pacific Land Law: Some Regional Challenges, Cases and Developments

2001 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 953 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Farran
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Common Law ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Land Law ◽  
The South ◽  
The Common ◽  
Customary Land

Land in the South Pacific is largely regulated by introduced English Common Law. However, the vast bulk of the land in the region is held under different forms of customary land tenure, and the perceptions of land and its use are distinctly regional. In this article, the author considers how the Common Law has been adapted in the region to accommodate and reflect customary law and practice. Selected cases from the region are used to highlight the difficulties that the courts face in blending Common Law principles with customary practice and accommodating changing uses of land that challenge traditional solutions.

The Conciliar Courts

2019 ◽  
pp. 126-134
Author(s):  
John Baker
Keyword(s):  
Due Process ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Habeas Corpus ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The North ◽  
Magna Carta ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Star Chamber

This chapter examines the courts associated with the king’s council and the residuary prerogative jurisdiction of the Crown. Such courts were not supposed to meddle with the law of property, or with matters of life and death, since they did not follow the ‘due process’ required by Magna Carta and its progeny, but they nevertheless developed extensive jurisdictions alongside the courts of law. Their procedure was close to that of the Chancery. The principal conciliar courts were the Star Chamber and the Court of Requests, at Westminster, but there were provincial counterparts in the Marches of Wales and in the North. The extraterritorial jurisdictions of the admiralty and the constable and marshal were similarly derived from the royal prerogative and operated outside the common law. The King’s Bench watched all these jurisdictions carefully and checked excesses by means of prohibition and habeas corpus.

3. Law, Equity, and Human Rights

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark P. Thompson ◽  
Martin George
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Land Law ◽  
The Common ◽  
Historical Basis ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Impact

In addition to the concepts of tenure and estates, another fundamental aspect of England’s Land Law is the impact of equity. The intervention of equity was originally based upon the need to enforce obligations of conscience and to redress defects in the common law, and also gave rise to the trust. But while the trust might be equity’s greatest creation, the intervention of equity also addressed other areas of Land Law where the common law position was considered to be defective or oppressive. A notable example is the law of mortgages. Aside from modifying the common law, equity also recognized other rights that did not result in the beneficial entitlement to the land. This chapter discusses the historical basis of equity in England, the creation of equitable rights, the enforceability of equitable and legal rights, and human rights.

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