This introductory text explores the historical origins of the main legal
institutions that came to characterize the Anglo-American legal tradition, and
to distinguish it from European legal systems. The book contains both text and
extracts from historical sources and literature. The book is published in
color, and contains over 250 illustrations, many in color, including medieval
illuminated manuscripts, paintings, books and manuscripts, caricatures, and
photographs.
Two great themes dominate the book: (1) the origins, development, and
pervasive influence of the jury system and judge/jury relations across eight
centuries of Anglo-American civil and criminal justice; and (2) the law/equity
division, from the emergence of the Court of Chancery in the fourteenth
century down through equity's conquest of common law in the Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure. The chapters on criminal justice explore the history of
pretrial investigation, policing, trial, and sentencing, as well as the
movement in modern times to nonjury resolution through plea bargaining.
Considerable attention is devoted to distinctively American developments, such
as the elective bench, and the influence of race relations on the law of
criminal procedure.
Other major subjects of this book include the development of the legal
profession, from the serjeants, barristers, and attorneys of medieval times
down to the transnational megafirms of twenty-first century practice; the
literature of the law, especially law reports and treatises, from the Year
Books and Bracton down to the American state reports and today's electronic
services; and legal education, from the founding of the Inns of Court to the
emergence and growth of university law schools in the United States.
History of the Common Law offers:
-
dynamic teaching materials that include primary sources, scholarship,
summaries, notes, and questions
-
judiciously selected and edited sources
-
over 250 illustrations—many in full color
-
Living Law units that connect legal-historical developments to
modern law
-
an illustrated timeline that highlights key dates
-
a comprehensive Teacher's Manual, with suggestions for using the book
in a two- or three-credit course
Vivid writing, engaging source materials, and lavish illustrations breathe
life into nearly 1,000 years of Anglo-American legal history. Concise
summaries, manageable extracts, clear organization, and a detailed
Teacher's Manual consistently support your teaching.
*Teacher’s Manuals are a professional courtesy offered to
professors only. For more information or to request a copy, please contact
Aspen Publishers at 800-950-5259 or legaledu@wolterskluwer.com.
Part I: The English Common Law: Medieval Origins
Chapter 1. Criminal Procedure and the Origins of the Jury System
Chapter 2. Civil Justice
Chapter 3. Shaping the Legal Professions: Bar, Bench, and Books
Part II: The Second English Legal System
Chapter 4. The Transformation of the Juries and the Reconstruction of Criminal
and Civil Justice
Chapter 5. The Rise of Equity
Chapter 6. The Maturation and Reform of Chancery, and the Fusion of Law
and Equity
Part III: Reshaping the Jury
Chapter 7. Controlling, Reviewing, and Suppressing Juries in England
Chapter 8. Judge/Jury Relations in America
Part IV: Criminal Justice
Chapter 9. Rebuilding Criminal Procedure: The Marian Pretrial and the
Altercation Trial
Chapter 10. The Growth of Defensive Safeguard
Chapter 11. American Criminal Justice
Part V: American Initiatives in the Common Law
Chapter 12. Legal Literature
Chapter 13. The Reception and Recasting of English Law
Chapter 14. Legal Education
Chapter 15. The Legal Profession
Illustrated Timeline
Table of English Regnal Years
Image Acknowledgments
Text Acknowledgments
Index
Legal traditions and legal institutions are, like so much else of the present
day world, products of the past. Teachers of its history to students whilst at
the same time maintaining and transmitting high scholarly standards. This
remarkable collection of materials is both an outstanding work of scholarship
in its own right, and as attractive and thoroughly usable a teaching tool as
has ever been published for any subject studied in American law schools.
– Brian Simpson
I have assigned, at one time or another, most of the leading text books and
document readers for my legal history classes. Though I have my favorites from
the past, this year, I adopted Langbein, Lerner, and Smith's History of the
Common Law: The Development of Anglo-American Legal Institutions.
Langbein, et al. use modern educational coursebook design to emphasize primary
materials, carry student attention forward, and provoke student interest
through graphics and images that enhance the text. It is a great achievement,
a major step forward in the evolution of course materials for the American law
school.
– Stephen M. Sheppard, William H. Enfield Professor of Law,
University of Arkansas School of Law
