2013. BÉMONT, CHARLES. Chartes des libertés anglaises, 11001305. Paris, 1892. Contains the texts of the charters of Henry I., Stephen, Henry II., and John, the articles of the barons, the forest charter, Henry III's confirmation of 1225, and Edward I.'s confirmations. The introduction gives a good account of the history of the Great Charter, with the literature of the subject. Valuable. 2014. BLACKSTONE, WILLIAM. The great charter and charter of the forest, to which is prefixed the history of the charters. Oxford, 1759. Contains the articles of the barons, the Great Charter, the forest charter, and the various confirmations to the year 1300. The best of the older works on Magna Carta. 2015. LAU, THADDEUS. Die Entstehungsgeschichte der magna charta. Hamburg, 1857. 2016. LIEBERMANN, FELIX. Eine anglo-normannische Uebersetzung von Articuli Willelmi, etc. Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie, xix. 77-84. Halle, 1895. This translation, which is here printed in full, was made in 1192 or 1193. 2017. The Latin text in full, with an Anglo-French translation and notes. 2018. ROUND, J. H. An unknown charter of liberties. English Hist. Review, viii. 288-94. London, 1893. Round believes that this document comprises concessions made to the northern barons in 1213. Its enactments closely resemble those of the Great Charter, but it contains two clauses concerning scutage and foreign service which are not found in Magna Carta. G. W. Prothero, ibid., 1894, ix. 117-21, suggests that the document is a proposal for a compromise offered by John to the barons early in 1215. Hubert Hall, ibid., ix. 326-35, believes that it is not an original charter, but a forgery or private compilation (circa 1216-17) based on Henry I.'s charter and Magna Carta. 2019. THOMSON, Richard. An historical essay on the magna charta of King John. London, 1829. Contains the text of John's charter, with a translation; also translations of the articles of the barons, the forest charter, and the confirmations of Henry III. and Edward I.; with elaborate notes, based largely on Coke's Second Institute. This is one of the 'standard' works on the Great Charter. Statutes. For the older editions of the statutes, see the Record Commission's edition (No. 2025), vol. i. introd., ch. i. § 1, and app. A. 2020. [BARRINGTON, DAINES.] Observations upon the statutes from magna charta to 21 James I. London, 1766. 5th edition, 1795. 2021. MAITLAND, F. W. The prærogativa regis. English Hist. Review, vi. 367-72. London, 1891. This so-called statute, dealing with the rights of the king, seems to be a tract written by some lawyer in the early part of Edward I.'s reign. 2022. MANWOOD, JOHN. A brefe collection of the lawes of the forest, with an abridgement of cases in the assises of the forests of Pickering and Lancaster. [London, 1592.] See No. 683. 2023. Statute of 40 Edward III. enacted at Kilkenny A.D. 1367, with a translation, ed. James Hardiman. Irish Archæol. Soc., Tracts relating to Ireland, vol. ii. Dublin, 1843. 2024. Statutes at large, passed in the parliaments held in Ireland, 1310-1761. Published by authority. 8 vols. Dublin, 1765. — Another edition [1310-1800, by J. G. Butler]. Published by authority. 20 vols. Dublin, 1786-1801. -The Irish statutes: revised edition [omitting most of the repealed statutes]. By authority. London, 1885. Vol. viii. of the first two editions is an index. There are not many Irish statutes of the 14th and 15th centuries. An abstract of the statutes will be found in pt. vi. of Liber Munerum Publicorum Hiberniæ, ed. Rowley Lascelles : an incomplete work, planned by the Irish Record Commission, printed 1822-30, and issued from the Rolls House, London, in 2 vols., 1852. There is an index to the Liber Munerum in Deputy Keeper's Reports, Ireland, 1877, ix. 21-58. 2025. *Statutes of the realm [1235-1713, ed. A. Luders, T. E. Tomlins, J. Raithby, and others]. Record Com. 11 vols. [London], 1810-28. Vols. x.-xi. are indexes. This is the most complete collection of the statutes of England to 1713. 2026. The statutes: revised edition [1235-1878]. By authority. 18 vols. London, 1870[-85]. The statutes: second revised edition [1235-1880]. By authority. 14 vols. London, 1888-99. Chronological table and index of the statutes [1235-1899]. By authority. 15th edition. 2 vols. London, 1899. Published under the direction of the Statute Law Committee. The revised editions' include only those statutes which are unrepealed; but the valuable Chronological Table refers to all the old, repealed acts, and shows how they were affected by later legislation. 2027. TURNER, G. J. Some thirteenth-century statutes. Magazine and Review, 4th series, xxi. 300-316, xxii. 240-50. London, 1896-97. See also his paper, A Newly-Discovered Ordinance (40 Henry III., forbidding tenants-in-chief to alienate fiefs without license), in Law Quarterly Review, 1896, xii, 299-301. c. MODUS TENENDI PARLIAMENTUM. This anonymous tract (No. 2030) gives an account of the composition and proceedings of parliament. The author exaggerates the importance of the commons and belittles the rights of the lords. Stubbs, in his Select Charters, 502, calls it 'a somewhat ideal description of the constitution of parliament in the middle of the 14th century. . . a theoretical view for which the writer was anxious to find a warrant in immemorial antiquity.' The work was probably written in the last quarter of the fourteenth century. Riess, in his Wahlrecht (No. 2946), 110-15, ascribes it to the second half of Richard II.'s reign; Bémont, to the early part of that reign; and Hardy, to the first quarter of the fourteenth century. For a popular account of this tract, see A. C. Ewald, Paper and Parchment (London, 1890), 59-70. 2028. BÉMONT, CHARLES. La date de la composition du Modus tenendi parliamentum. In Mélanges Julien Havet: Recueil de Travaux dédiés à la Mémoire de Julien Havet, 465-80. Paris, 1895. Believes that the tract was written soon after the accession of Richard II. 2029. HARDY, T. D. On the Modus tenendi parliamentum, with special reference to the unique French version. Royal Archæol. Institute of Great Britain, Archæol. Journal, xix. 259-74. London, 1862. Contains the text of the French version. 2030. Modus tenendi parliamentum [with a translation], ed. T. D. Hardy. Record Com. London, 1846. pp. 47. Reprinted in Stubbs's Select Charters, 502-13. 8th edition. Oxford, 1895. Hardy contends that it was written between 1294 and 1327. 2031. Modus tenendi parliamenta et concilia in Hibernia, ed Anthony [Dopping], bishop of Meath. Dublin, [1692]. pp. 9. New edition, 1772. A Latin tract, of uncertain date, which used to be ascribed to the reign of Henry II. § 52. THE CENTRAL COURTS. a. General, Nos. 2032-53. b. Particular Counties, etc., Nos. 2054-86. The following are the principal classes of records relating to the royal judicature: 1. Plea rolls of the common law courts, containing the official minutes of their proceedings. Pleas heard in the king's court (curia regis) seem to have been enrolled in the last years of Henry II.'s reign, but the earliest surviving rolls are of the year 1194. In the twelfth century royal justice was administered in the curia regis with its tributary eyres or circuits; and from this central tribunal the courts of king's bench (curia coram rege) and common pleas (curia de banco) gradually emerged in the reign of John. The general eyre, which tried all kinds of suits, was gradually displaced in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by various commissions of justices, who tried specific categories of cases (justices of gaoldelivery, of assize, of oyer and terminer, etc.). At first the various judicial records are not sharply distinguished; criminal and civil proceedings before the central court and before the eyre are included under the general head of curia regis. As now arranged in the Public Record Office, all placita coram rege and all common pleas (placita de banco) to the accession of Edward I. are called rotuli curiæ regis; all eyre records of the same period are called assize rolls. From the time of Edward I. onward we have distinct series of records for the king's bench (coram rege rolls), common pleas (de banco rolls), eyre, gaol-delivery, etc. There are also plea rolls of the court of exchequer, 20 Henry III.-Victoria; though mainly concerned with the royal revenue, this tribunal tried many actions between the king's subjects. The quo warranto proceedings (No. 2040) form a separate class of eyre rolls; and the coroners rolls (Nos. 2047, 2073) are also closely connected with the business of the itinerant justices. For pleas in parliament and in the king's council, see § 51 and No. 2041. All the judicial records printed by the Record Commission, Pipe Roll Society, and Selden Society are valuable. 2. Feet of fines, pedes finium, or final concords (Nos. 2035, 2055-61, etc.). They are records of actions, mainly fictitious suits, brought before the curia regis, the court of common pleas, or the eyre, for the purpose of conveying land. When such a case came up for trial, the parties secured permission from the court to settle or put an end ('finis') to the suit, and the land was adjudged to belong to the plaintiff according to a prearranged agreement made by him and the defendant. A copy or indenture of the judgment was given to each of them, and its counterpart, called the foot, was kept by the court as evidence of the new owner's title. This served effectively to register the transfer of land. Final concords seem to have first come into use in the second half of Henry II.'s reign, but only a few fines of that period have survived. The continuous series of pedes finium, which begins in 1195, is remarkably complete, and extends to 1834, when fines were abolished by statute. They are particularly valuable to the genealogist and topographer. See Pollock and Maitland, English Law, 2nd edition, ii. 94-106; and, on the earliest fines, J. H. Round, in English Historical Review, 1897, xii. 293-302, and in his Feudal England, 509-18. The modern law of the subject is fully set forth in William Cruise's Essay on Fines, London, 1783; 3rd edition, 1794. 3. The year books, 1292-1535 (No. 2053), so called because there was one for each regnal year. They are anonymous law reports, written in French, containing the discussions of the judges and counsel on the points of law, and the grounds of judgment in important cases tried before the royal justices either at Westminster or in eyre. According to an old legal tradition, these reports had official sanction and were drawn up by reporters in the employ of the crown. Much legal and constitutional history still lies buried in the year books, a good edition of which has long been an urgent want. 'They should be our glory, for no other country has anything like them; they are our disgrace, for no other country would have so neglected them:' Pollock and Maitland, English Law, 2nd edition, vol. i. p. xxxv. See also Frederick Pollock, A First Book of Jurisprudence, 1896, pt. ii. ch. v. ; C. P. Cooper, Account of the Public Records, 1832, ii. 390-401. 4. Records of the courts of chancery, forests, Jews, chivalry, and other special tribunals. Of these the most important are the equity A A |