The British and Their Laws in the Eighteenth CenturyDavid Lemmings New analysis and interpretation of law and legal institutions in the "long eighteenth century". Law and legal institutions were of huge importance in the governance of Georgian society: legislation expanded the province of administrative authority out of all proportion, while the reach of the common law and its communal traditions of governance diminished, at least outside British North America. But what did the rule of law mean to eighteenth-century people, and how did it connect with changing experiences of law in all their bewildering complexity?This question has received much recent critical attention, but despite widespread agreement about Law's significance as a key to unlock so much which was central to contemporary life, as a whole previous scholarship has only offered a fragmented picture of the Laws in their social meanings and actions. Through a broader-brush approach, The British and their Laws in the Eighteenth Century contributes fresh analyses of law in England andBritish settler colonies, c. 1680-1830; its expert contributors consider among other matters the issues of participation, central-local relations, and the maintenance of common law traditions in the context of increasing legislative interventions and grants of statutory administrative powers. Contributors: SIMON DEVEREAUX, MICHAEL LOBBAN, DOUGLAS HAY, JOANNA INNES, WILFRED PREST, C.W. BROOKS, RANDALL MCGOWEN, DAVID THOMAS KONIG, BRUCE KERCHER |
Contents
the roots of English legal positivism | 27 |
high law and low law | 59 |
The promulgation of the statutes in late Hanoverian Britain | 80 |
Legislation and public participation 17601830 | 102 |
The experience of litigation in eighteenthcentury England | 133 |
Litigation participation and agency in seventeenth | 155 |
Common terms and phrases
Abbot acts administration appears argued assizes authority Beverley bill Blackstone Blackstone's borough Britain British Brooks Bushranging Act Cambridge central Chancery civil litigation colonial Comm committee common law constitution conviction courts Crime criminal law Culture customs debate debt decline E.P. Thompson Early Modern England early nineteenth century eighteenth century Eighteenth-Century England English law English Society evidence example execution Forbes Glorious Revolution governor Hale House of Commons imperial increased inquiry institutions issues John Journal judges judicial jurisdiction jury justice king King's Bench labour Laws of England lawyers legislation legislature Lemmings London Lord magistrates manorial master and servant merchants Muldrew natural law offences Office original Oxford parliament Parliamentary History peace penal petitions political practice Privy Council proceedings punishment quarter sessions reform reports Review Revolution rule Selden seventeenth century social South Wales Spotswood Staffordshire statutes statutory suggests Trade trial Tyburn Virginia Westminster