scholarly journals A Godly Law? Bulstrode Whitelocke, Puritanism and the Common Law in Seventeenth-Century England

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 273-287
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Rose
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Common Law ◽  
British History ◽  
Apparent Relationship ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law Of Moses ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Debates surrounding both the church and the law played an important role in the conflicts that marked seventeenth-century England. Calls for reform of the law in the Civil Wars and Interregnum complicated the apparent relationship between puritanism and the common law, as the first fragmented and the second came under attack in the 1640s and 1650s. This article first analyses the common lawyer Bulstrode Whitelocke's historical and constitutional writings that defended the common law against demands for its reform and argued that its legitimacy derived from its origins in, and resemblances to, the law of Moses. Refraining from the radical application of this model employed by some contemporaries, Whitelocke instead turned to British history to make his case. This article then examines Whitelocke's views of the relationship between common law and ecclesiastical jurisdiction in his own day, showing how, both as a lawyer and as a puritan, he navigated laws demanding religious conformity. Whitelocke's career therefore demonstrates how lawyers could negotiate the fraught relationship between the church and the law in the aftermath of the reconfigurations provoked by the Civil Wars and Restoration.

1. The historical origins of the trust

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
JE Penner
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
The Core ◽  
Administrative Power ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Historical Origins

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.

Sovereignty and Common Law Judicial Office in Taylor's Case (1675)

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 397-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kearns
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Ecclesiastical Law ◽  
Chief Justice ◽  
Spiritual Nature ◽  
The Common ◽  
English Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Church ◽  
Law Making

This essay argues that the 1675 conviction of John Taylor by the Court of King's Bench for slandering God reveals Chief Justice Matthew Hale implementing a model of conjoint law-making between courts, Parliament, and crown that gave pre-eminent power to the common lawyers, and none to the Church of England. In doing so, it counters the prevailing literature on Restoration English law, which has treated the law as hierarchical, with the common lawyers subordinate to the sovereign. Rather than following statute or ecclesiastical law, which emphasised the spiritual nature of crimes like Taylor's, Hale located Taylor's offence in the exclusively temporal common law jurisdiction of defamation, which existed largely outside of monarchical purview. Hale's judgment reflected his rhetoric of judicial office outside the courtroom, where he argued the judiciary worked alongside King and Parliament in making law, but were not subservient to these institutions, for common lawyers relied on sources of law beyond sovereign-made statute. The language of sovereignty as hierarchical was thus a factional attack on an independent common law, an attempt to subordinate the common lawyers to the crown that was resisted by the lawyers like Hale in his rhetoric and exercise of office, and should not ground accounts of the Restoration regime.

scholarly journals Conscience and the King's Household Clergy in the Early Tudor Court of Requests

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 210-226
Author(s):  
Laura Flannigan
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Central Administration ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
Royal Household

The early Tudor Court of Requests was closely attached to the king's person and his duty to provide ‘indifferent’ justice. In practice, however, it was staffed by members of the attendant royal household and council. Utilizing the little-studied but extensive records of the court, this article traces the rising dominance of the dean of the Chapel Royal and the royal almoner as administrators and judges there from the 1490s to the 1520s. It examines the relationship between supposedly ‘secular’ and ‘spiritual’ activities within the central administration and between the formal and informal structures and ideologies of the church, the law and the royal household. It explores the politics of proximity and the ad hoc nature of early Tudor governance which made the conscience-based jurisdiction in Requests especially convenient to the king and desperate litigants alike. Overall the article argues that although the influence of clergymen in the court waned towards the end of the sixteenth century in favour of common-law judges, its enduring association with ‘poor men's causes’ and ‘conscience’ grew directly from these early clerical underpinnings.

scholarly journals HOW STRICTLY DID THE ATHENIAN COURTS APPLY THE LAW? THE ROLE OF EPIEIKEIA

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
EDWARD HARRIS
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
General Rule ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
Positivist Approach

Abstract H. Meyer‐Laurin has claimed that the Athenian courts took a stricti iuris approach to the law and did not take extenuating circumstances into account. Other scholars (Mirhady, Todd) have claimed that the courts sometimes ignored the law and took extra‐legal considerations into account, which was called ‘fairness’ (epieikeia). The essay begins with a careful reading of Aristotle's analysis of ‘fairness’ (epieikeia) in the Nicomachean Ethics and the Rhetoric and draws on an important essay by J. Brunschwig. Fairness was not a doctrine that attempted to undermine the authority of the law or placed the law of the city in opposition to the unwritten laws or the common law of mankind. Nor did the application of fairness introduce non‐legal factors into adjudication. Rather, fairness dealt with the problem of treating exceptions to the general rule contained in a specific written law. The essay then shows how litigants used arguments based on fairness and how the courts sometimes took extenuating circumstances into account. When Athenian judges swore to decide according to the laws of Athens, they did not just consider the law under which the accuser had brought his case. They could also take into account general principles of justice implicit in the laws of Athens as a whole. In this way, they avoided a rigid positivist approach to law. Finally, the essay sheds some light on the relationship between Aristotle's Rhetoric and the arguments used in the Athenian courts.

An Outline of the Law Governing the Relationship between Banker and Customer in Kenya

1975 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 52-65
Author(s):  
Margaret Rogers
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Common Law ◽  
General Application ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship

It is perhaps desirable to start off by reminding ourselves as to what generally is the law which is applicable to bankers in Kenya. We know that the sources of Kenya law as set out in the Judicature Act, 19671 are:“;(a) the Constitution;(b) subject thereto, all other written laws, including the Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom, cited in Part I of the Schedule to this Act, modified in accordance with Part II of that Schedule;(c) subject thereto and so far as the same do not extend or apply, the substance of the common law, the doctrines of equity and the statutes of general application in force in England on the 12th August, 1897, and the procedure and practice observed in courts of justice in England at that date:…”;

scholarly journals Smith v Chief Constable of Sussex Police; [2008] UKHL; 50

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-152
Author(s):  
Carol Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Exclusive Focus

WHO HAS FIRST CLAIM ON “THE LOYALTY OF THE LAW”?Smith v Chief Constable of the Sussex Police (hereafter Smith) was heard by the House of Lords at the same time as Chief Constable of the Hertfordshire Police v Van Colle and another because they had two uniting factors. First, they both concerned the recurring question of the ambit of police liability in the situation described by Lord Bingham thus: “…if the police are alerted to a threat that D may kill or inflict violence on V, and the police take no action to prevent that occurrence, and D does kill or inflict violence on V, may V or his relatives obtain civil redress against the police, and if so, how and in what circumstances?”2  Secondly, considering the cases together highlighted the wider issue of the relationship between decisions under the Human Rights Act 1998 (hereafter the HRA) and the development of the common law. The Law Lords embarked on a more extensive examination of these issues in Smith and thus that case will be the exclusive focus of this note.  In addition, the study of Smith raises questions regarding proposals for law reform as well as about judicial perceptions of policy priorities. 

6. Liability of Occupiers and Builders

2019 ◽  
pp. 243-277
Author(s):  
Simon Deakin ◽  
Zoe Adams
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Present Form ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Law Commission

Occupier’s liability is, essentially, part of the law of negligence, although it takes statutory form. Its present form is, moreover, the product of various successive legislative accretions. As such, prime importance must be attached to the wording of the statutes, assisted wherever necessary by reference to the preparatory publications of the Law Commission. This chapter will discuss the Occupiers’ Liability Act of 1957, which deals with the liability of Occupiers towards persons (‘visitors’) permitted to be on the Occupier’s land; the Occupiers’ Liability Act of 1984, that deals with the liability of Occupiers towards trespassers; and the liability of non-occupiers, such as vendors, landlords, and builders. It will also explore the relationship between the statutory regime, and the common law of negligence.

The English Law of Sanctuary

1990 ◽  
Vol 2 (6) ◽  
pp. 8-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. Baker
Keyword(s):  
Canon Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Early Date ◽  
Administration Of Justice ◽  
Holy Places ◽  
Royal Courts ◽  
The Common ◽  
English Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Church

Although the protection of churches and holy places was embodied froman early date in Canon law, the law of sanctuary as it applied in England was necessarily part of the secular common law. The Church never had the physical power to resist the secular authorities in the administration of justice, and although those who violated sanctuary were liable to excommunication the Church could not in cases of conflict prevent the removal from sanctuary of someone to whom the privilege was not allowed by the law of the land. The control of the common law judges was, indeed, tighter than in the case of benefit of clergy. The question whether an accused person was or was not a clerk in Holy Orders was ultimately a question for the ordinary, however much pressure might be put upon him by the judges; but the question of sanctuary or no sanctuary was always a question for the royal courts to decide, upon the application of a person who claimed to have been wrongly arrested in a privileged place. The present summary is confined to the position under English law.

Duress and the Criminal Law: Another About Turn by the House of Lords

1988 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. P. Milgate
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
General Rule ◽  
The Past ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second Degree

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.

The Law and the Gospels, with Attention to the Relationship Between the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount/Plain

2019 ◽  
pp. 408-424
Author(s):  
Richard E. Averbeck
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Sermon On The Mount ◽  
Kingdom Of Heaven ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law Of Moses ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

According to the Gospels, Jesus kept of the law of Moses, but he considered the expansionist teachings of the “traditions of the elders” accepted by many of the Jewish leaders and teachers of his day to be overly pedantic, burdensome, and sometimes not even in accord with what the law itself intended. This gave rise to the controversies between him and many of the Jewish teachers in his day, as testified to in the Gospels, and the ongoing debates over Jesus’s view of the law from the beginning of the church up to the present day. Jesus saw himself as a prophetic teacher of the law in line with the prophets in the Hebrew Bible, which is the reason he often emphasized his absolute commitment to the truth and ongoing application of “the law and the prophets” in the kingdom of heaven.

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