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The World's Legal Systems Lecture 4
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Comprehensive notes of lecture 4 of The World's Legal Systems
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The World’s Legal Systems – Lecture 4The history of the common law of England
Subjects
The emergence of the English law between the 11th and 14th centuries
o The significance of the Norman conquest (1066). What the Norman invaders brought
with them has been crucial in order to understand how this system of common law
came into existence.
o The emergence and role of royal courts. They became very important around the 13th
and 14th century.
o The writ system. Writs are little pieces of parchment that are issued by the chancery
of the King. And when you wanted to start a trial in late medieval England and even in
the main part of the 19th century, then you needed to have a writ.
o Problems (which were linked to the writ system)
o Parallel (flexible) systems: lex mercatoria and equity
o Characteristics of common law
Crisis and change (17th – 19th century)
o Problems with writs and equity
o The legal profession
o Chancery, new societal problems
Reform (19th century)
o The ideas of Bentham (he was influenced by what happened on the continent: French
Revolution, he wanted to introduce these concepts into the English legal system)
o Reshuffling the courts
We will tackle the history of common law England. We will talk about the main characteristics and the
historic development of common law, not only in England but also in the United States. These classes
are a bit different from the ones that we already had. These first classes were more analytical and
more theoretical, and these classes are more linked to history. So they are more concrete. This has to
do with the topic of common law as well, which is very much case based. So it is very different from
what continental lawyers are used to do. Continental lawyers think that they can deduce rules from
general principles, from rules that are written within codes, whereas the common lawyer works the
other way around. He starts from the facts of the case and searches for cases that are very similar and
uses these cases in order to solve the legal problem. The first class will be about the common law in
the UK mostly, from the medieval times until the 19th century. This is important in order to draft the
essential features of the common law in England which is still for a large part medieval. So the way in
which English lawyers think has a lot to do with how the common law has come about since the middle
of the 11th century. Many of these old characteristics are still to be found in what lawyers in the UK in
general do today. The second class will be about the United States and the third class will be more
theoretical and analytical. There we will look at the binding force of precedent which is an important
principle in the history of common law. This class will be more of delving into the legal reasoning of
common lawyers and we will see why history is so important. For the written examination, you only
need to know what the teacher tells us in class. So the reader is more sort of background material.
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