The History of English Law c. 880-1220

我在AHRC休假期间的研究将完成从阿尔弗雷德国王时期（871-899）到大宪章时期（1215）的英国法律历史的彻底检查。要完成的卷的规模——大约30万字——使它能够结合基于主要原始研究的非常广泛的专著和历史学家和律师一般使用的调查的功能。一个世纪以来，这一领域的标准著作仍然是f·w·梅特兰的《英国法史》，但他的主要关注点是1220年之后的时期。更近的历史著作，新的方法，和额外的来源都使一个新的研究必不可少。我的书论证了盎格鲁-撒克逊时期的重要作用，它提供了强大的立法王权、强大的政府、与国王有关的地方法院以及许多对后来有关犯罪的法律至关重要的因素。盎格鲁-诺曼时期保留了这一遗产，并引入了有关土地持有的新习俗。这些发展是英国普通法形成的必要条件，但不是充分条件。安茹时期产生了常规化的基本要素，部分与日益识字的法律文化有关。在这个时候，皇家法官可能对法律的发展施加了最大的影响，作为标准化的主要力量。越来越多的法官决定案件，而不仅仅是主持法庭，但他们的专业知识还没有与代表诉讼当事人的法律职业相媲美。到12世纪末和13世纪初，法律与普通社会实践的距离越来越远，因为某些王室法律措施的效果令案件当事人感到惊讶。与此同时，我们看到基于法律技术性的意外影响的法律工具的出现。这些发展奠定了法律职业的出现以及通过专业论证、司法裁决和立法进行的法律变革的基础，这将成为后来普通法发展的特征。这本书按时间顺序分为三个时期：到1066年，诺曼征服后的一个世纪，以及1160年至1220年的几十年。在每个时期，都有单独的章节专门讨论王权、立法和司法；法院和法庭程序；土地;可移动的;盗窃和暴力；状态;家庭。三个时间顺序部分中的两个现在已经完成，第三个将在AHRC研究休假时完成。这在AHRC研究期间留下了三个主要章节，这些章节涵盖了整个时期。首先是关于城市法，这是法律史中经常被忽视的主题。将对这一问题进行审查，不仅是为了其本身，而且也是为了其对更广泛的法律发展可能产生的影响，无论是在程序方面还是在实质性思维方面，例如在所有权的性质方面。另外两章将考虑法律与社会关系的变化。第一阶段将在更广泛的争议背景下制定法律，审查法律与法外活动或课外活动之间关系的变化和连续性。第二部分将考察法律规范和其他规范之间的关系，认为这两者之间的区别在我所处时期的最后几十年尤为明显。正如已经指出的那样，这种尖锐化将对后来的法律发展史产生非常重要的影响。简短的介绍和总结章节，也将在AHRC研究休假期间撰写，将这些主题置于法律史学的背景下，从9世纪到13世纪的欧洲法律实践，以及英国法律的长期历史。

My research during the period of AHRC Leave will complete a thorough examination of the history of English law from the time of King Alfred (871-899) up to the time of Magna Carta (1215).The scale of the volume to be completed - c. 300,000 words - allows it to combine the functions of a very extended monograph based on major original research with those of a survey for general use by historians and lawyers. The standard work in the field remains, a century on, F. W. Maitland's History of English Law, but his primary focus was on the period after 1220. More recent historical writing, fresh approaches, and additional sources have all rendered essential a new study. My book argues for the vital role of the Anglo-Saxon period in providing ideas of powerful legislative kingship, strong government, local courts connected to the king, and many elements significant to later law regarding crime. The Anglo-Norman period crucially preserved this legacy, and saw the introduction of new customs regarding land-holding. Such developments were necessary but not sufficient conditions for the formation of the English Common Law. The Angevin period produced essential elements of routinization, in part connected to an increasingly literate legal culture. At this time royal justices may have exercised their greatest influence over the development of law, acting as a major force for standardization. Increasingly justices were deciding cases, rather than simply presiding over courts, but their expertise was yet to be rivaled by that of a legal profession representing litigants. By the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, law was growing more distanced from ordinary social practice, as certain royal legal measures were having effects which surprised parties to cases. At the same time, we see the emergence of legal devices based on unintended effects of the technicalities of law These developments underlie the emergence of the legal profession and of legal change through professional argument, judicial decision, and legislation, which would characterize much later Common Law development.The volume is divided into three chronological periods: that up to 1066, the century after the Norman Conquest, and the decades c. 1160-1220. For each period, individual chapters are devoted to kingship, legislation, and justice; courts and court procedure; land; moveables; theft and violence; status; family. Two of the three chronological sections are now complete, and the third will be finished by the time of the AHRC Research Leave. This leaves for completion during the AHRC Research Leave three main chapters, chapters that cover the entirety of the period. The first is on urban law, a subject often neglected within legal histories. This will be examined for its own sake, but also for its possible influence on wider legal developments, both in terms of procedure and of substantive thinking, for example on the nature of ownership. The other two chapters will consider the changing relationship of law and society. The first will set law within a wider context of disputing, examining changes and continuities in the relationship of legal and extra-legal or extra-curial activities. The second will examine the relationship of legal and other norms, arguing that there was a sharpening of the distinction between the two particularly in the last decades of my period. This sharpening, as already indicated, would have a very important effect on the later history of legal development. Short introductory and concluding chapters, also to be written during AHRC research leave, will set these themes in the contexts of legal historiography, of European legal practice from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries, and of the longer-term history of English law.