Law and Authority in British Legal History, 1200–1900

By presenting original research into British legal history, this volume emphasises the historical shaping of the law by ideas of authority. The essays offer perspectives upon the way that ideas of authority underpinned the conceptualisation and interpretation of legal sources over time and became embedded in legal institutions. The contributors explore the basis of the authority of particular sources of law, such as legislation or court judgments, and highlight how this was affected by shifting ideas relating to concepts of sovereignty, religion, political legitimacy, the nature of law, equity and judicial interpretation. The analysis also encompasses ideas of authority which influenced the development of courts, remedies and jurisdictions, international aspects of legal authority when questions of foreign law or jurisdiction arose in British courts, the wider authority of systems of legal ideas such as natural law, the authority of legal treatises, and the relationship between history, law and legal thought.

1. The judicial interpretation of legislation in later thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century England Paul Brand; 2. The authority of Parliament and the scope of the Statute of Uses 1536 N. G. Jones; 3. Developing a prerogative theory for the authority of the Chancery: the French connection Ian Williams; 4. Authority and precedent David Ibbetson; 5. Legislation and authority in early modern Scotland Andrew Simpson; 6. The sources of early Scots consistorial law: reflections on law, authority and jurisdiction during the Scottish Reformation Thomas Green; 7. Conciliar authority and equitable jurisdiction in early modern Scotland J. D. Ford; 8. Legal authorities as instruments of conflict management: the long endgame of Anglo-Hanseatic relations (1474–1603) Alain Wijffels; 9. History and the justification of governmental authority and individual rights in the age of John Locke and Samuel Pufendorf Andreas Thier; 10. The commissioners for claims on France and the case of the Baron de Bode, 1815–61 Michael Lobban; 11. The authority of law in a bureaucratic framework: the nineteenth-century medicine stamp duty Chantal Stebbings; 12. The authority of treatises in English law, 1800–1936 Stephen Waddams; 13. Maitland and Austin: legal history and legal thought in the late nineteenth century John Hudson.

Mark Godfrey is Professor of Legal History at the University of Glasgow, where he teaches private law and legal history.