Crime, Compurgation and the Courts of the Medieval Church

1983 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. H. Helmholz

The history of criminal law has claimed an increasing share of the attention of legal and social historians in recent years. Undeterred by Professor Milsom's verdict that in the area of English criminal law, ‘nothing worthwhile was created,’ historians have plunged into the study of doctrine and practice in the common law courts. The attractions of the source material are undoubtedly great. The law is relatively straightforward, at least compared to land litigation. The cases are interesting and sometimes sensational. The subject matter promises rewards in understanding the relationship between social change and legal development. And the study may even be immediately relevant, shedding light on current law enforcement problems.

Author(s):  
Justine Pila

This chapter considers the meaning of the terms that appropriately denote the subject matter protectable by registered trade mark and allied rights, including the common law action of passing off. Drawing on the earlier analyses of the objects protectable by patent and copyright, it defines the trade mark, designation of origin, and geographical indication in their current European and UK conception as hybrid inventions/works in the form of purpose-limited expressive objects. It also considers the relationship between the different requirements for trade mark and allied rights protection, and related principles of entitlement. In its conclusion, the legal understandings of trade mark and allied rights subject matter are presented as answers to the questions identified in Chapter 3 concerning the categories and essential properties of the subject matter in question, their method of individuation, and the relationship between and method of establishing their and their tokens’ existence.


1971 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. Baker

Slade's Case is of such significance in the history of the common law that it has, quite properly, been the subject of more scrutiny and discussion in recent years than any other case of the same age. The foundation of all this discussion has been Coke's report, which is the only full report in print. The accuracy and completeness of Coke's version have hardly been challenged, and the discussions have assumed that it contains almost all there is to know about the case. This assumption must be discarded if we are to understand the contemporary significance of the case.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
JE Penner

Titles in the Core Text series take the reader straight to the heart of the subject, providing focused, concise, and reliable guides for students at all levels. This chapter traces the historical roots of the trust. The law of trusts is the offspring of a certain English legal creature known as ‘equity’. Equity arose out of the administrative power of the medieval Chancellor, who was at the time the King’s most powerful minister. The nature of equity’s jurisdiction and its ability to provide remedies unavailable at common law, the relationship between equity and the common law and the ‘fusion’ of law and equity, and equity’s creation of the use, and then the trust, are discussed.


2020 ◽  
pp. 3-32
Author(s):  
Gary Watt

This chapter focuses on the historical and conceptual foundations of trusts and equity, first examining the history of the relationship between law and equity, including the historical origins of the trust. It then explains the idea of equity and how it is intertwined with the common law, and compares the trust with concepts such as gifts and contracts. The chapter shows that the trust arose in response to equity’s special concern to ensure that legal rights are not used in bad conscience, but later developed into a sophisticated institution governed by established rules. It looks at the reform of the Court of Chancery and considers trust property, equitable rights under a trust, separation of legal and equitable title, and the paradox of property and obligation.


Author(s):  
John V. Orth

This chapter focuses on Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780), the author of the most important book in the history of the common law. The four-volume Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769) and the series of lectures Blackstone delivered at Oxford from 1753, changed the way lawyers thought about the law. Blackstone’s Commentaries were read by more people, non-lawyers as well as lawyers, than any other English law book. Their influence is difficult to overstate, and extends into the twenty-first century. Almost as momentous was Blackstone’s influence on legal education. While gradual, the transfer of legal education from the law office and the courts to the university, which Blackstone pioneered, had an enormous impact on legal development, as law professors contributed to the formation of generations of lawyers and themselves came to play a significant role in legal development.


Author(s):  
Оlena Shtefan ◽  

The subject of this article was one of the fundamental and debatable provisions of the doctrine of civil procedural law - its subject. The author on the basis of the analysis of scientific sources, the legislation carried out the retrospective analysis of formation and development of scientific thought concerning definition of a subject of civil procedural law. The paper identifies two main approaches to understanding the subject of the industry and elements of its structure. Analyzing the "narrow" approach to defining the subject of civil procedural law and certain areas of its coverage in the works of scholars, the author substantiates the position on the relationship between procedural activities and social relations that arise between the court and the parties. Particular attention is paid to the history of inclusion in the subject of civil procedural law enforcement proceedings. The author's position on the subject and system of civil procedural law is substantiated. The essence of the "broad" approach to the definition of the subject of the industry by including in its structure of non-jurisdictional forms of legal protection is revealed. The essence of two opposite tendencies in scientific researches concerning structure of a subject of civil procedural law is revealed: the first tendency is reduced to expansion of a subject at the expense of inclusion in it of economic procedural law, at ignoring independent character of this branch of law; the second - the narrowing of the subject of civil procedural law by removing from its structure of enforcement proceedings, the relations arising in the consideration of labor cases. The connection between the definition of the subject of civil procedural law and the jurisdiction of the court defined in the legislation is substantiated. It is proved that the tendency to narrow the subject of civil procedural law was embodied in the legislation of the country as a result of judicial reform in 2016, which led to conflicts in legislation and problems in law enforcement. Based on the theoretical model of determining the subject of legal regulation and using the analogy of determining its structure, the elements of the structure of the subject of civil procedural law are distinguished and its definition is formulated.


1973 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-90
Author(s):  
Moshe Shalgi

The prohibition against multiple trials for the same matter is a basic principle of criminal law and long a principle deeply rooted in European tradition. Many jurisdictions consider it important enough to deserve inclusion in their constitutions. Nevertheless the relevant provisions have been applied in quite diverse patterns throughout the various common law jurisdictions, and within each of them have developed unsystematically. They have been the subject of severe criticism down to the present time.Three main doctrines have been developed in the common law jurisdictions:(a)Former trial:This is better known in England asautrefois acquitandautrefois convict, and in the United States as double jeopardy. A man can be tried only once for his criminal behaviour. Once a lawful verdict has been rendered he is protected against further prosecution for the same matter. Underautrefois acquitandautrefois convicta verdict must have been formerly pronounced in the matter which is charged in the subsequent indictment. Under double jeopardy it is enough that the defendant has been in jeopardy of conviction (for the same matter) in former proceedings.


1984 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey MacCormack

Sir Henry Maine's Ancient Law, first published in 1861, postulated legal development in terms of an evolution from status to contract. Since that time both lawyers and anthropologists have made frequent use of the notion of status in their characterisation of law or society. Although status is a concept well known in social theory whose exponents, independently of Maine, have worked out its content and application, much that has been written about status in a legal or anthropological context owes its inspiration to him. Maine's status to contract thesis has proved of interest both to lawyers studying the history of the common law or modern developments in the law of contract and to anthropologists studying social and legal phenomena in simple or tribal societies.


1988 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. P. Milgate

In the field of criminal law we should be used to the House of Lords changing its mind. In the course of the past three years the House has fundamentally altered its view on the meaning of intention, on the relationship between statutory and common law conspiracy and on the law of impossible attempts. Now we have another about turn. In R. v. Howe and Bannister the House of Lords has unanimously decided that duress can never be a defence to murder. Yet elsewhere in the criminal law (with the exception of some forms of treason) duress operates as a complete defence, leading to acquittal if raised successfully. In making murder an exception to this general rule the House, using its power under the Practice Statement of 1966, has departed from its previous decision in D.P.P. for Northern Ireland v. Lynch which allowed the defence of duress to be raised by principals in the second degree to murder. The Lynch decision, which had stood as part of the common law for some twelve years, is now consigned to the legal scrapheap.


2000 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 427-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lobban

Lindsay Farmer's argument that, in seeking to replace the common law with legislation, and in striving for a novel systematization of the relationship between civil and penal law, the criminal law commissioners of 1833-45 transformed the understanding of criminal law in relation to government is a powerful one. It is to some degree an inferential argument, positing that a reading of Bentham's theory of legislation allows us to understand the commissioners' work better, since Bentham “makes explicit many of the broader political assumptions that guided the commissioners and allows us to understand the precise nature of their codification project.” It is worth asking therefore how far the commissioners were informed by Benthamic ideas and what they understood their task to be.


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