Ruggle's Ignoramus and Humanistic Criticism of the Language of the Common Law

1977 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. F. J. Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
James I ◽  
Inns Of Court ◽  
Chief Justice ◽  
The Common ◽  
The University

According to contemporary observers, George Ruggle's Ignoramus, first staged at Cambridge in March 1614, enjoyed an immense success, or notoriety, both at the university and at “Whitehall while it sent shockwaves through the Inns of Court and infuriated Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench. The comedy was apparently conceived as an attack upon Francis Brackyn, Recorder of Cambridge and constant adversary of the university, but because of its brilliant and merciless satire of legal jargon, the play achieved a universality which aided James I and the civilian lawyers in their jurisdictional struggles against Coke and the common law bench.

scholarly journals XXV.—The Will, Inventories, and Funeral Expenses of James Montagu, Bishop of Winchester, anno 1618. From the original in the possession of the Baroness North

Archaeologia ◽  
1874 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 393-421
Author(s):  
Evelyn Philip Shirley
Keyword(s):  
Privy Council ◽  
James I ◽  
Chief Justice ◽  
Christ Church ◽  
Oliver Cromwell ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Common ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The University

James Montagu (or Mountagu, as he wrote it himself), fifth son of Sir Edward Montagu, of Boughton, in the county of Northampton (who was the eldest son of Sir Edward Montagu, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and the founder of the ducal house of Montagu), was born at Boughton in the year 1568, and educated in Christ Church College, Cambridge, and became eventually Master of Sidney College, “where,” as Anthony Wood observes “he was noted for his piety, virtue, and learning.” “When the University went to meet James I. on his coming from Scotland, his Majesty first took notice of him at Hinchinbrooke (the seat of the loyal Sir Oliver Cromwell, uncle to the Protector), and made him Dean of the Royal Chapel, and in 1604 (December 17) Dean of Worcester. On the 17th of April, 1608, he was consecrated Bishop of Bath and Wells, and eight years afterwards, viz., in 1616, translated to the see of Winchester. “For his faithfulness, dexterity, and prudence,” adds Wood, “in weighty affairs, the king chose him to be one of his Privy Council.” (Oct. 11, 1617).

scholarly journals Kári á Rógvi, West-Nordic Constitutional Judicial Review: A Comparative Study of Scandinavian Judicial Review and Judicial Reasoning (Copenhagen: Djøf Publishing, 2013)

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael L. Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Judicial Review ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Faroe Islands ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Legal Literature ◽  
The Common ◽  
Judicial Reasoning ◽  
The University ◽  
Constitutional Judicial Review ◽  
Selection Of

West-Nordic Constitutional Judicial Review is based on Kári á Rógvi’s doctoral dissertation, defended in 2009 at the University of Iceland with the esteemed Eivind Smith and Guðmundur Alfreðsson as thesis opponents. It provides an excellent account of judicial review in the West-Nordic tradition (Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland) based on a selection of ‘leading cases, reminiscent of the common law approach to legal studies. As such, it is something of a novelty in the Nordic legal literature and a long overdue supplement to what Kári laments as the staid legal treatises that form the basis of Nordic legal educations (323-335).

Law Making

2019 ◽  
pp. 206-238
Author(s):  
John Baker
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
Legal Change ◽  
Inns Of Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Learning ◽  
Law Making

This chapter examines the history of case-law, legislation, and equity, with particular reference to legal change. The common law was evidenced by judicial precedent, but single decisions were not binding until the nineteenth century. It was also rooted in professional understanding, the ‘common learning’ acquired in the inns of court. It was based on ‘reason’, operating within a rigid procedural framework. Legal change could be effected by fictions, equity, and legislation, but (except during the Interregnum) there was little systematic reform before the nineteenth century. Legislation was external to the common law, but it had to be interpreted by common-law judges and so there was a symbiotic relationship between statute-law and case-law. Codification has sometimes been proposed, but with limited effect.

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.

Blackstone

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John V. Orth
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
First Century ◽  
Legal Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The University ◽  
Law Professors

This chapter focuses on Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780), the author of the most important book in the history of the common law. The four-volume Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769) and the series of lectures Blackstone delivered at Oxford from 1753, changed the way lawyers thought about the law. Blackstone’s Commentaries were read by more people, non-lawyers as well as lawyers, than any other English law book. Their influence is difficult to overstate, and extends into the twenty-first century. Almost as momentous was Blackstone’s influence on legal education. While gradual, the transfer of legal education from the law office and the courts to the university, which Blackstone pioneered, had an enormous impact on legal development, as law professors contributed to the formation of generations of lawyers and themselves came to play a significant role in legal development.

Blackstone’s and Mansfield’s Narrow Liberties of Press and Speech, and Broad Crimes of Seditious Libel and Seditious Words

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-76
Author(s):  
Wendell Bird
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Chief Justice ◽  
Ancient Law ◽  
The Common ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
First Time ◽  
Prior Restraint

The narrow understanding of freedoms of press and speech, adopted by Sir William Blackstone and Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, defined those freedoms as no more than liberty from a government-issued license or other prior restraint, with no liberty from punishment of sentiments once printed or spoken. In doing that, the last volume of Blackstone’s Commentaries in 1769 summarized a narrow common law definition of freedoms of press and speech that did not exist in common law. Mansfield’s decisions introduced a similar definition into the common law for the first time the year after that. Besides describing a new definition as ancient, both Blackstone and Mansfield described the related framework for prosecuting sedition as being ancient and universally accepted, when in fact it was a collection of unique rules adopted and manufactured seventy years before and recently revised. Blackstone and Mansfield were not declaring ancient law but were creating new law.

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