Blackstone, Sir William (1723-1780). Istolkovaniia angliiskikh zahonov [Commentary on English Laws of Mr. Blackstone]. Moscow, 1780-82. 3 vols. Special Collections, Harvard Law School Library

Catherine II became aware of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69) through the French translation. It became her bedside book, replacing Montesquieu, and greatly influenced her ideas on law and administration. Only volume I of Blackstone was translated into Russian, at her behest by S.E. Desnitskii (c. 1740-1789), the Glasgow-educated first Russian professor of law, and A.M. Briantsev (1749-1821). While Catherine had a special need for the book, it was part of her larger commitment to translations expressed in the establishment of a Society for the Translation of Foreign Books, which survived until 1783 and which she subsidized handsomely.

Among the 700 pages of notes which Catherine II took while reading Blackstone were drafts for a High Court of Justice. On her trip to the Crimea in 1787 Catherine II took her notes on Blackstone and her Nakaz with her to compare the two texts and work on further plans for constitutional reform. Her scheme for a High Court of Justice drawn from Blackstone seemed to combine legislative features of Parliament in England with judicial elements. Her contemplated High Court would have chambers consisting of appointed councilors and assessors elected by the local nobility, urban dwellers, and State peasants.

Blackstone wrote approvingly of Catherinian reforms in penal law:

"Was the vast territory of all the Russias worse regulated under the late Empress Elizabeth, than under her more sanguinary predecessors? Is it now under Catherine II less civilized, less social, less secure? And yet we are assured, that neither of these illustrious princesses have, throughout their whole administration, inflicted the penalty of death; and the latter has, upon full persuasion of its being useless, nay, even pernicious, given orders for abolishing it entirely throughout her extensive dominions." -- William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. 4, p. 10.

See: I. de Madariaga, Catherine the Great: A Short History (1990).

"Monuments of Imperial Russian Law," curated by William E. Butler and Mike Widener, is on display Mar. 1 - May 25, 2012, in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

We thank the following for their help and support in preparing this exhibit... Justin Zaremby & Mike Widener

• Stephen Parks, Librarian of the Elizabethan Club
• The Board of Incorporators of the Elizabethan Club
• Nadine Honigberg, The Elizabethan Club
• John H. Langbein, Sterling Professor of Law and Legal History, Yale Law School
• S. Blair Kauffman, Law Librarian and Professor of Law, Yale Law School
• John Stuart Gordon, Benjamin Attmore Hewitt Assistant Curator of American Decorative Arts, Yale University Art Gallery
• Shana Jackson, Lillian Goldman Law Library
• Henry Granville Widener

"Life and Law in Early Modern England," an exhibition marking the Centenary of the Elizabethan Club, is curated by Justin Zaremby with Mike Widener, and is on display February-May 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library Yale Law School. 

Francis Beaumont, 1584-1616. The masque of the Inner Temple and Grayes Inne (London, 1613). Collection of the Elizabethan Club of Yale University.

In addition to serving as centers of legal training, the Inns of Court provided social activities for students and their teachers, and training in the courtly arts. Students studied fencing and music, and engages in an ample amount of gaming and drinking. The performance of masques for special occasions was an important part of life at the Inns. Students elected masters of revels and learned dancing, particularly in the period following the rise of the Stuarts. This masque was staged by members of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn and was performed before King James I and Queen Anne.

    -- Justin Zaremby

"Life and Law in Early Modern England," an exhibition marking the Centenary of the Elizabethan Club, is curated by Justin Zaremby with Mike Widener, and is on display February-May 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library Yale Law School.

Lancelot Andrewes, 1555-1626. A sermon preached before the kings maiestie, at Hampton Court, concerning the right and power of calling assemblies (London, 1606). Collection of the Elizabethan Club of Yale University; gift of Henrietta C. Bartlett.

When James I acceded to the throne he became Supreme Governor of the Church of England. In 1606, he asserted similar control over the Church of Scotland after a group of Presbyterian ministers claimed the authority to convene meetings of the Scottish church's General Assembly, in defiance of the King's wishes. James reacted by summoning eight of the dissenting Scottish ministers to Hampton Court where four ministers lectured them on the pointed question: "What the king may doe in maters ecclesiasticall, and whether or not he had wholly the power of Conveenning and discharging Assembleis?" Lancelot Andrewes, then Bishop of Chichester, and a favorite of James, defended the king's ancient right to control the Church of Scotland in this sermon. Andrewes would later defend James's persecution of Catholics following the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and serve as Bishop of Ely, Bishop of Westminster, and dean of the Chapel Royal.

    -- Justin Zaremby

"Life and Law in Early Modern England," an exhibition marking the Centenary of the Elizabethan Club, is curated by Justin Zaremby with Mike Widener, and is on display February-May 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library Yale Law School.

John Selden, 1584-1654. The historie of tithes that is, the practice of payment of them (London, 1618). Collection of the Elizabethan Club of Yale University; gift of the daughters of Samuel Hart Selden, May 1922.

Early modern legal scholarship focused at great length upon the question of whether secular or ecclesiastical courts were supreme. Between 1605 and 1613, a series of ecclesiastical lawyers and scholars drew upon the interpretations of medieval canon lawyers and some historical evidence to make strident attacks upon lay ownership of tithes. John Selden's 1618 Historie of Tithes, a major work of legal history, responded to this controversy. He analyzed European laws and natural law theory to show that payment of tithes had always been a matter for local secular courts instead of being determined by the laws of God in ecclesiastical courts.

    -- Justin Zaremby

"Life and Law in Early Modern England," an exhibition marking the Centenary of the Elizabethan Club, is curated by Justin Zaremby with Mike Widener, and is on display February-May 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library Yale Law School.

Sir Edward Coke, 1552-1634. Les reports de Edvvard Coke l'attorney generall le Roigne (London, 1601?). Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library; acquired with the John A. Hoober Fund.

Sir Edward Coke, 1552-1634. [Coke on Littleton] The first part of the Institutes of the lawes of England (London, 1633). Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library; acquired with the Ford Motor Company Fund.

Edward Coke was called to the bar in 1578 and quickly gained renown for his trial skills. He successfully argued Shelley's Case (1581), which established an important rule regarding remainders in the transfer of real property by deed, and which bedevils beginning law students to this day. As Attorney General, Coke was responsible for the prosecutions of the Earl of Essex, following his unsuccessful coup d'etat, and Sir Walter Raleigh for treason. James I appointed Coke to be Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and later Lord Chief Justice of King's Bench. In that position he frequently clashed with the King and Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon over the extent of the King's prerogative and the power of the Chancery Court, asserting the right of judicial review. After being driven from the bench, he sat for multiple parliaments, playing an important role in drafting the 1628 Petition of Right, which asserted the independence of parliament in the face of the absolutism of Charles I.

In addition to his work as a lawyer and judge, Coke's legacy was established with the publication of his eleven volumes of law reports, which helped compile essential common law precedents. In 1628, Coke published his most important work, his Commentary upon Littleton. Coke's annotations of Littleton's Tenures, a fifteenth-century treatise on property, quickly became an authoritative text for common lawyers in England and later the United States.

One of the early annotators of the Coke on Littleton displayed here was Samuel Butler (1613-1680), author of Hudibras, an enormously popular and influential satire about the Puritans.

     -- Justin Zaremby

"Life and Law in Early Modern England," an exhibition marking the Centenary of the Elizabethan Club, is curated by Justin Zaremby with Mike Widener, and is on display February-May 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library Yale Law School.

Sir Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, 1561-1626. Essayes. Religious meditations. Places of perswasion and disswasion. Seene and allowed (London, 1597). Collection of the Elizabethan Club of Yale University; gift of Alexander S. Cochran, December 1911.

Sir Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, 1561-1626. The elements of the common lawes of England (London, 1630). Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library; acquired with the John A. Hoober Fund.

Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, had an illustrious career as a writer, philosopher, and politician. The son of Lord-Keeper Nicholas Bacon, he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge and was called to the bar at Gray's Inn. Through the patronage of the Earl of Essex, Bacon entered parliament, but, due to his outspoken criticism of Queen Elizabeth, failed to secure prize appointments, with his life-long rival Edward Coke instead being appointed Elizabeth's Attorney General. His opportunities improved under James I, when he was appointed Solicitor General and later Lord Chancellor.

As Lord Chancellor Bacon argued strenuously for the King's prerogative, claiming at times that such prerogative came not from the common law, but instead from absolute right. Following his defense of prerogative in the face of parliamentary discontent, and allegations of bribery, Bacon was ultimately impeached. Because of his published works, Bacon ranks among the most important early modern philosophers.

     -- Justin Zaremby

"Life and Law in Early Modern England," an exhibition marking the Centenary of the Elizabethan Club, is curated by Justin Zaremby with Mike Widener, and is on display February-May 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library Yale Law School.

William Cecil, First Baron Burghley, 1520/21-1598. The execution of justice in England for maintenance of publique and Christian peace (London, 1583). Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library; acquired with the Yale Law Library Patrons Fund.

Lord Burghley served as Queen Elizabeth's Secretary of State and eminence grise. Trained as a lawyer, much of his public career was dedicated to ensuring the stability of the Queen's reign in the face of numerous crises, among them being the lack of a clear successor to the throne and Catholic conspiracies to overthrow Elizabeth. In his 1583 work on The Execution of Justice, Burghley, masquerading as a loyal Catholic, defended the persecution of Catholics as a matter of state policy. Following the excommunication of the Queen in 1570, and the Pope's demand that all loyal Catholics deny her legitimacy, Burghley claimed that the Queen could, according to political need, persecute Catholics. The work was translated into Dutch, French, Italian, and Spanish.

     -- Justin Zaremby

"Life and Law in Early Modern England," an exhibition marking the Centenary of the Elizabethan Club, is curated by Justin Zaremby with Mike Widener, and is on display February-May 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library Yale Law School.

Edmund Plowden, 1518-1585. A treatise proveinge that if or soveraigne ladye Elizabeth ... should dye without issue, that the Queene of Scotte is nott disabled by the lawe of England, to receyue the crowne of Englande by descent [before 1676]. Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library; acquired with the John A. Hoober Fund.

Edmund Plowden rose to prominence as a lawyer under the reign of Queen Mary and became well-known as a law reporter. In 1566, probably in response to a request from the Duke of Norfolk, Plowden wrote this defense of Mary Stuart's claim to the English throne as Elizabeth's successor. He based his claim on the fact that the English throne passed by inheritance and that because the maxims of the common law, which applied to natural bodies, did not apply to political bodies, Mary's foreign birth did not invalidate her claim to the throne. Moreover, he noted that Mary's accession would not lead to English subjugation by the Scots given the traditional homage shown by the Scots to the English. His argument was proven correct when, as he foresaw, the Stuart kings chose to rule from England, instead of from Scotland.

     -- Justin Zaremby

"Life and Law in Early Modern England," an exhibition marking the Centenary of the Elizabethan Club, is curated by Justin Zaremby with Mike Widener, and is on display February-May 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library Yale Law School.

Abraham Fraunce, 1559-1592/93. The lawiers logike, exemplifying the praecepts of logike by the practise of the common lawe (London, 1588). Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library; gift of Mary Kane Blair in memory of Waring Roberts, Law 1940.

Abraham Fraunce was called to the bar at Gray's Inn and practiced law in Wales, but is better known as a minor poet and rhetorician. A member of Sir Philip Sidney's circle, his works summarized classical and continental writers for English readers. In The Lawyers Logike, Fraunce applied French understandings of rhetoric and logic to the practices of English common lawyers to show that law and logic, when properly applied, could work together. In the introduction to the text he wrote:

If Lawes by reason framed were, and grounded on the same;
If Logike also reason bee, and thereof had this name;
I see no reason, why that Law and Logike should not bee
The nearest an the dearest friends, and therefore best agree.

     -- Justin Zaremby

"Life and Law in Early Modern England," an exhibition marking the Centenary of the Elizabethan Club, is curated by Justin Zaremby with Mike Widener, and is on display February-May 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library Yale Law School.

William Lambarde, 1536-1601. The duties of constables, borsholders, tythingmen, and such other lowe ministers of the peace (London, 1584). Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library.

William Lambarde, 1536-1601. Eirenarcha, or Of the office of the iustices of peace, in foure bookes (London, 1599). Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library; acquired with the John A. Hoober Fund.

William Lambarde, 1536-1601. The dueties of constables, borsholders, tythingmen, and such other lowe and lay ministers of the peace (London, 1599). Collection of the Elizabethan Club of Yale University; gift of Henry H. Anderson, Jr. in memory of Wilmarth S. Lewis, December 1983.

The attourney of the Court of Common Pleas: or his directions and instructions concerning the course of practice therein, with sundry observations thereupon, &c. / written by G.T. of Staple Inne, gent. (London, 1642). Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library; acquired with the John A. Hoober Fund.

Institutions or principall groundes of the lawes and statutes of England (London, 1570). Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library.

William Lambarde's Eirenarcha, or, The Office of the Justices of Peace (1582), was printed twelve times before 1620 and served as a standard authority on county administration. After being called to the bar in 1567, Lambarde dedicated his professional life to jobs ranging from commissioner of the peace to master of chancery and deputy keeper of the rolls. His scholarly writings also included his Archaionomia (1568), the second book to print Old English, which collected and paraphrased Anglo-Saxon laws and treaties, together with the laws of Edward the Confessor and William I. Lambarde may have sat for parliament under Elizabeth, at which point he famously disobeyed the Queen's 1566 demand that parliament no longer discuss the possibility of her marriage.

With the advent of the printing press, standardized legal procedures continued to evolve. Numerous printed guides provided practicing lawyers and county administrators with model oaths as well as explanations of various aspects of the common law. Printed guides also helped to spread knowledge of the law. For example, in the 1570 Institutions or Principall Grounds of the Laws and Statutes of England, published by the famed Elizabethan printer Richard Tottel, the author called for a clear understanding of the laws such that men may not say of the English that "we make very goodly and profitable laws but we use them not."

    -- Justin Zaremby

"Life and Law in Early Modern England," an exhibition marking the Centenary of the Elizabethan Club, is curated by Justin Zaremby with Mike Widener, and is on display February-May 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library Yale Law School.

Jonas Adames. The order of keeping a court leete, and court baron (London, 1593). Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library; acquired with the John A. Hoober Fund.

As early as the thirteenth century, sheriffs and stewards could turn to a series of manuscripts that explained the procedures of local courts. While legal treatises by figures such as Bracton and Glanvill offered larger discussions of the common law, these smaller treatises were focused on practical matters. Following the invention of the printing press, the ease with which these guides were distributed helped standardize judicial institutions across the country. Adames's 1593 guide is the earliest of such manuals to appear in English instead of Latin. His guide reflected changes to the judicial system under the Tudors, explaining details of both common law and statutory law.

    -- Justin Zaremby

"Life and Law in Early Modern England," an exhibition marking the Centenary of the Elizabethan Club, is curated by Justin Zaremby with Mike Widener, and is on display February-May 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library Yale Law School.

Sir John Fortescue, 1533-1607. A learned commendation of the politique lawes of England (London, 1599). Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library.

Sir John Fortescue served as Lord Chief Justice under Henry VI and was a loyal partisan of the Lancastrian cause during the War of the Roses. He went into exile after the victory of the Yorkists, during which time he wrote this treatise on English laws, probably to instruct the young Prince of Wales. In this work he praised the advantages of English common law over Roman law, noting that in England “the regal power is restrained by political law.” Fortescue's work contrasted the limited rule of English kings with the despotism of French kings. Later jurists such as Sir Edward Coke would look to Fortescue to justify constitutional limitations on the power of the English monarch. His work gained wide readership after the publication of its first printed edition in 1545/46.

    -- Justin Zaremby

"Life and Law in Early Modern England," an exhibition marking the Centenary of the Elizabethan Club, is curated by Justin Zaremby with Mike Widener, and is on display February-May 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library Yale Law School.

Christopher St. Germain, 1460-1540/41. [Doctor and Student] The Dialogue in English, betweene a doctor of divinitie, and a student in the lawes of England (London, 1593). Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library; acquired with the Judah P. Benjamin Fund.

Christopher St. Germain's Doctor and Student first appeared in English in 1530. The work consists of two dialogues conducted between a doctor of divinity and a student of the common law. They discuss the place of equity and conscience in the law. St. Germain's work was published at a time at which chancery courts, which had previously been led by ecclesiastical chancellors, began to be controlled by common lawyers. Doctor and Student helped instruct common lawyers in the ways of their predecessors so that they could better understand the relationship between law and equity.

    -- Justin Zaremby

"Life and Law in Early Modern England," an exhibition marking the Centenary of the Elizabethan Club, is curated by Justin Zaremby with Mike Widener, and is on display February-May 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library Yale Law School.

The late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries saw a series of important legal debates in England. Under the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and the first two Stuart monarchs, James I and Charles I, lawyers, parliamentarians, and members of the court argued over the relationship between common law courts and equity courts, and the extent of the monarch's prerogative. The further development of printed law books and law reports helped standardize the law and its enforcement throughout the country. Leading members of the English judiciary -- Edmund Plowden, Sir Francis Bacon, and Sir Edward Coke -- rose to prominence and published works whose influence continues to the present day.

This exhibit displays highlights of this period in English law using the holdings of the Lillian Goldman Law Library's Rare Book Collection and the Elizabethan Club of Yale University. The Elizabethan Club was founded in 1911 by Alexander Smith Cochran, a member of the Yale College Class of 1896. Cochran established the Elizabethan Club to provide a place for daily conversation between students and faculty members. In his founding gift, Cochran donated a remarkable collection of early modern texts. For the last 100 years the Club has added to its collection. While the Club's library is well known because of its early editions of Shakespeare, Milton, and Spenser, it contains a number of important legal works, as well. The occasion of the Club's Centenary provides the opportunity to bring together two impressive collections of early modern texts at Yale to illustrate a rich moment in English legal history.

     -- Justin Zaremby

"Life and Law in Early Modern England," an exhibition marking the Centenary of the Elizabethan Club, is curated by Justin Zaremby with Mike Widener, and is on display February-May 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library Yale Law School.

English law not only underwent deep changes in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, but also played a leading role in politics and culture. "Life and Law in Early Modern England," a new exhibit from the Lillian Goldman Law Library and Yale's Elizabethan Club, illustrates this period with works drawn from the rare book collections of both institutions.

The exhibit is on display February-May 2011 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, located on Level L2 of the Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street. The exhibit is open to the public, 9am-10pm weekdays, 10am-10pm weekends. It will also be available online, here in the Yale Law Library Rare Books Blog.

The exhibit was curated by Justin Zaremby, a 2010 graduate of the Yale Law School, assisted by Mike Widener, Rare Book Librarian at the Lillian Goldman Law Library.

"Life and Law in Early Modern England" is part of the year-long Centenary celebration of the Elizabethan Club, founded in 1911 as a meeting place for conversation and discussion of literature and the arts. The Club's website has a calendar of Centenary events.

In conjunction with the exhibit, the Law Library and Elizabethan Club are sponsoring a public lecture by Professor Josh Chafetz (Law '07) of Cornell Law School, entitled "'In the Time of a Woman, Which Sex Was Not Capable of Mature Deliberation': Late-Tudor Parliamentary Relations and Their Early-Stuart Discontents." The lecture will take place February 24 at 6:15pm in Room 127 of the Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street.

In his introduction to the exhibit, Zaremby writes, "The occasion of the Club's Centenary provides the opportunity to bring together two impressive collections of early modern texts at Yale to illustrate a rich moment in English legal history." The books and manuscripts on display date from 1570 to the 1670s. They include guides to legal practice, textbooks, a play performed at an Inn of Court, and works dealing with church-state relations, legal philosophy, court jurisdiction, and the claim of Mary Queen of Scots to the English throne. Among the authors included are several of the era's leading figures, such as Francis Bacon, Francis Beaumont, Lord Burghley, Edward Coke, and John Selden.

Illustration: Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), Les reports de Edvvard Coke l'attorney generall le Roigne (London, 1601?). Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library; acquired with the Ford Motor Company Fund.

The following select bibliography includes the sources consulted in the preparation of this exhibit. The image is of the opening leaf of the Liber Assisarum, a collection of Year Book cases from the reign of Edward III (manuscript in Law French, ca. 1450).

English law reports

• Abbott, L. W. Law Reporting in England 1485-1585. London: Athlone Press, 1973.
• Baker, J. H. "Coke's note-books and the sources of his reports." Cambridge Law Journal 30:1 (Apr. 1972), 59-86.
• Baker, J. H. "Records, reports and the origins of case-law in England," in Judicial Records, Law Reports, and the Growth of Case Law (J. H. Baker, ed.; Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1989), 15-46.
• Bolland, William Craddock. A Manual of Year Book Studies. Cambridge [England]: University Press, 1925. [Reprinted Holmes Beach, Fla.: Wm. W. Gaunt & Sons, 1986.]
• Fox, John Charles. A Handbook of English Law Reports from the Last Quarter of the Eighteenth Century to the Year 1865, with Biographical Notes of Judges and Reporters. London : Butterworth & Co., 1913.
• Heard, Franklin Fiske. Curiosities of the Law Reporters. Boston: Lee & Shepard ; New York: Lee, Shepard, & Dillingham, 1871. [2nd ed.: Boston: Soule and Bugbee, 1881.]
• Luther, Peter. "The Year Books." Law Librarian 13:2 (Aug. 1982), 19-22.
• Matthews, Elizabeth W. Seventeenth Century English Law Reports in Folio: Description of Selected Imprints. Buffalo: W.S. Hein, 1986.
• Plucknett, T. F. T. "The genesis of Coke's Reports." Cornell Law Quarterly 27:2 (Feb. 1942), 190-213.
• Powell, Damian. "Coke in context: early modern legal observation and Sir Edward Coke's reports." Journal of Legal History 21:3 (Dec. 2000), 33-53.
• Stebbings, Chantal, ed. Law Reporting in Britain. London: Hambledon Press, 1995.
• Veeder, Van Vechten. "The English Reports, 1292-1865." Harvard Law Review 15:1 (May 1901), 1-25; 15:2 (June 1901), 109-117.
• Wallace, John William. The Reporters: Arranged and Characterized with Incidental Remarks. 4th ed. Boston: Soule & Bugbee, 1882. [Reprinted Buffalo, N.Y.: W.S. Hein, 1995.]

American law reports

• Aumann, Francis R. "American law reports: yesterday and today." Ohio State University Law Journal 4:3 (June 1938), 331-345.
• Briceland, A. V. "Ephraim Kirby: pioneer of American law reporting, 1789." American Journal of Legal History 16 (Oct. 1972), 297.
• Duffey, Denis P., Jr. "Genre and authority: the rise of case reporting in the early United States." Chicago-Kent Law Review 74:1 (Winter 1998), 263-275.
• Harrington, William G. “A brief history of computer-assisted legal research.” Law Library Journal 77:3 (1984-85), 543-556.
• Joyce, Craig. "The rise of the Supreme Court Reporter: an institutional perspective on Marshall Court ascendancy." Michigan Law Review 83:5 (Apr. 1985), 1291-1391.
• Joyce, Craig. "Wheaton v. Peters: the untold story of the early reporters." Yearbook (Supreme Court Historical Society) 1985, 35-92.
• LaPiana, William P. "Dusty books and living history: why all those old state reports really matter." Law Library Journal 81:1 (Winter 1989), 33-39.
• Surrency, Erwin C. "Law reports in the United States." American Journal of Legal History 25:1 (Jan. 1981), 48-66.
• Young, T. J., Jr. "Look at American law reporting in the 19th century." Law Library Journal 68 (Aug. 1975), 294-306.

General works

• Holdsworth, William Searle. A History of English Law. 17 vols. London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1966-72.
• Langbein, John H., Renée Lettow Lerner, & Bruce P. Smith. History of the Common Law: The Development of Anglo-American Legal Institutions. Forthcoming 2009, Aspen Publishers.
• Simpson, A.W.B., ed. Biographical Dictionary of the Common Law. London: Butterworths, 1984.
  
• Woxland, Thomas A., & Patti J. Ogden. Landmarks in American Legal Publishing: An Exhibit Catalog. [St. Paul, Minn.?:] West Publishing Co., [1989?].

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

W. T. S. Daniel (1806-1891), A Letter to Sir Roundell Palmer ... on the Present System of Law Reporting, Its Evils, and the Remedy (London, 1863?).

W. T. S. Daniel was active in many areas of law reform, and in 1863 he began working for a better system of law reporting. There was wide dissatisfaction with the existing system. The authorized reports were tardy and expensive, prompting competition from weekly legal newspapers. Daniel outlined his solution in this open letter to his ally, Attorney General Sir Roundell Palmer. His efforts resulted in the creation of the Incorporated Council for Law Reporting, which began issuing an official series of reports under the auspices of the bar, which continues to this day.

Daniel presented this copy to "Th. Carlton", and also amended the title.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Sir James Burrow (1701-1782), Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Court of King’s Bench ... (5 vols.; London, 1766-80).

Burrow's Reports established the modern pattern of what a law report should contain: the reporter’s statement of the facts, a summary of the arguments of counsel, and the court’s judgment.

Burrow had collected notes on King’s Bench cases for some time, and was prompted to publish them after being subjected to "continual interruption and even persecution by incessant application for searches into my notes, for transcripts of them, sometimes for the note-books themselves (not always returned without trouble and solicitation), not to mention frequent conversations upon very dry and uninteresting subjects, which my consulters were paid for considering, but I had no sort of concern in."

"Burrow's Reports, therefore, may, in their department, fairly be called 'works of art,' -- ... case, arguments, and opinion – going out to the bar separate in form as distinct in nature, each from the other; each complete in itself, but having, one with all, exact and reciprocal adaptation, and presenting so a full, harmonious, but never redundant whole." -- John W. Wallace, The Reporters Arranged and Characterized (4th ed. 1882).

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Sir John Popham (1531?-1607), Reports and Cases Collected by the Learned, Sir John Popham, Knight, Late Lord Chief-Justice of England (London, 1656).

Popham’s Reports is but one of “the flying squadrons of thin reports” published in the mid- to late 17th century, and exemplifies their shortcomings. Popham himself can’t be blamed because he died a half-century before their publication, and probably never intended for them to be published. They were taken from a manuscript of unknown quality, and supplemented with a number of later cases. They were among many case reports translated (often badly) into English following the Commonwealth’s ban on the use of Law French in the courts. Many judges rejected them as having no authority, and banned their citation in court.

Sir John Popham was one of the most colorful of the law reporters, if the stories about him can be believed. As a child he was supposedly kidnapped and raised by gypsies, and worked his way through law studies at the Middle Temple as a petty thief. As a barrister, however, Popham rose through the ranks. By 1581 he was speaker of the House of Commons and Attorney General, and in 1592 he was made Chief Justice of King’s Bench. He was known as a strict but fair judge, and presided over the trials of the Earl of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the Gunpowder Plot conspirators. He was also one of the promoters of the Jamestown colony in Virginia.

“Indigested crudities”

“A multitude of flying reports (whose Authors are as uncertain as the times when taken, and the causes and reasons of the Judgements as obscure, as by whom judged) have of late surreptitiously crept forth; whereby ... we have been entertained with barren & unwarranted Products ... which not only tends to the depraving of the first grounds & reason of our Students at the Common Law, & the young practitioners thereof, who by such false Lights are misled, ... but also to the contempt of our Common Law itselfe, and of divers of our former grave and learned Justices and professors thereof, whose honored and revered names have in some of said Books been abused and invocated to patronize the indigested crudities of those plagiaries.” -- Sir Harbottle Grimston, preface to The Reports of Sir George Croke (1657)

“See the inconveniences of these scambling reports, they will make us to appear to posterity for a parcel of blockheads.” -- Holt C.J., Slater v. May, 2 Raymond 1072 (1704)

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Sir Edmund Saunders (d. 1683), Les Reports du Tres Erudite Edmund Saunders ... des Divers Pleadings et Cases en le Court del Bank le Roy (2 vols.; London, 1686).

Edmund Saunders authored the best law reports of the late 17th century, known for their accuracy and clarity. They set out the pleadings and give concise summaries of the facts, issues, arguments, and judgment. The overriding focus of the reports is with the law of pleading, at which Saunders was the acknowledged master. Later on, Saunders' Reports was translated and annotated and became a classic textbook on pleading, although Saunders' own text had largely disappeared by its last edition in 1871.

"Within the first decade after the Restoration there are several new reports, extending for the most part over the remainder of the Stuart period. Chief among them is Saunders (1666-73), who is universally conceded to be the most accurate and valuable reporter of his age. His work is confined to the decisions of the King's Bench between the eighteenth and twenty-fourth years of the reign of Charles II. Saunders participated as counsel in most of the cases, and he reports them with admirable clearness. In general his reports resemble Plowden's; but they are much more condensed. He gives the pleadings and entries at length, and follows in regular order with a concise statement of the points at issue, the arguments of counsel, and a clear statement of the grounds of the judgment. The work was subsequently enriched by the learned annotations of Sergeant Williams." -- Van Vechten Veeder, "The English Reports, 1292-1865," 15 Harvard Law Review 1, 15 (1901).

Edmund Saunders' life is one of the few rags-to-riches stories of English law. Born into abject poverty, he taught himself to be a clerk and eventually entered the Middle Temple. His skill as a special pleader earned him a lucrative practice, but he lived simply. A contemporary, Roger North, described him as a heavy drinker and "a fetid mass that offended his neighbors at the bar in the sharpest degree." He was kind, witty, honest, and idolized by law students: "I have seen him for hours ... with an audience of students over against him, putting of cases and debating so as suited their capacities and encouraged their industry."

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Sir Francis Moore (1558-1621), Cases collected and reported by Sir Francis Moore (manuscript in Law French, 2 vols., 1621).

________, Cases Collect & Report per Sir Fra. Moore Chevalier, Serjeant del Ley ... (2nd ed.; London 1688).

Sir Francis Moore was a prominent English barrister during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. This manuscript, completed by Moore the year he died, contains notes of significant cases he and others observed in the Courts of King’s Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer, and Chancery between 1512-1621. The first page of the manuscript proclaims Moore’s authorship: “Ex Libro Francisci Moore Militis Servieu ad Legem script p[ro]pria manu ipius,” which roughly translates as “Manuscript of Francis Moore, Sergeant of Law, written by his own hand.”

Although printing was widespread by this time, it remained expensive. As a result, books with a limited audience continued to be distributed in manuscript form. Moore’s reports circulated widely in manuscript before they were first published in 1663.

This manuscript once belonged to the noted jurist Sir Matthew Hale (whose signature appears on an interior page to indicate ownership), and is among the 21 manuscript volumes from Hale’s library now in the Yale Law Library’s rare book collection. Hale’s second wife was Moore’s granddaughter.

The printed volume on display belonged to Samuel Hitchcock (whose signature appears on the title page), one of the founders of Yale Law School. It was part of the original collection of the Yale Law Library, and forms part of the Founders’ Collection.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

William Tothill (1560-1627), The Transactions of the High Court of Chancery, Both by Practice and President (London, 1671).

Although reports of Chancery cases had occasionally appeared in manuscript Year Books and various printed case reports, Tothill's Transactions of the High Court of Chancery (1st ed. 1649) was the first printed collection devoted exclusively to Chancery cases. Van Vechten Veeder described them as "extremely brief and unsatisfactory, often giving merely a bare statement of the facts of a cases and the final decree, without any indication of the grounds of the judgment" ("The English Reports, 1292-1865," 15 Harvard Law Review 1, 112 (1901)). Decent Chancery reports did not appear until the dawn of the 18th century.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), Les Reports de Edvvard Coke l’Attorney Generall le Roigne ... (London, 1600?).

Sir Edward Coke's Reports are perhaps the most influential reports in the history of English law, so much so that they are cited simply as "The Reports." Their authority rests mainly on the high reputation of their author, and not on their accuracy or objectivity. Coke was not shy about inserting his own views, and set out not only to report the law but also to teach it. His vast learning spills out, rendering reports that are often disorderly.

The first volume of Coke's Reports appeared in about 1600 (shown here), and met with such success that ten more volumes appeared in the next fifteen years. Legal historian T.F.T. Plucknett believes Coke may have been the first to report cases with the intent of publishing them soon after. When Coke was dismissed as a judge of King’s Bench in 1616, his political enemies (of which he had many) launched an investigation into alleged errors in the Reports, effectively halting his law reporting.

Coke on his Reports

"And now that I have taken upon myself to make a report of their arguments, I ought to do the same as fully, truly, and sincerely as possibly I can ; howbeit, seeing that almost every Judge had in the course of, his argument a particular method, and I must only hold myself to one, I shall give no just offense to any if I challenge that which of right is due to every Reporter, that is, to reduce the sum and effect of all to such a method as, upon consideration had of all the arguments, the Reporter himself thinketh to be fittest and clearest for the right understanding of the true reason and causes of the judgment and resolution of the case in question." -- Sir Edward Coke, Calvin's Case, 8 Rep. 4a

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Edmund Plowden (1518-1585), Les Commentaries, ou Reportes de Edmunde Plowden un Apprentice de le Comen Ley (London, 1571) [with] La Second Part de les Reports, ou Commentaries ... (London, 1610).

Edmund Plowden's Commentaries was the first of the "nominative reporters," reports cited by the reporter's name. His reports claim many other "firsts." They were the first to include the names of the parties in the headings, providing a citation method that lawyers follow to this day. Plowden was the first reporter to prepare his reports for the press. His was the first collection of leading cases, "annotated by an editor at the head of the profession, which by including the pleadings … enabled them to be studied in the context of litigation" (Biographical Dictionary of the Common Law). Reprinted numerous times, they were required reading for law students. In terms of their accuracy, organization, and balance, they were unsurpassed for centuries.

Highly respected and successful as a lawyer, Plowden was kept from the bench by his loyalty to the Catholic faith.

The copy on display is the first edition of 1571. An early hand altered the publication date to 1599, the date of the fourth printing; perhaps it was a bookseller “refreshing” his stock.

Commentaries on Plowden’s Commentaries

"In almost all of the Cases which I have undertaken to report, before they came to be argued, I had Copies of the Records, and took Pains to study the Points of Law arising thereupon, so that oftentimes I was so much Master of them, that if I had been put to it, I was ready to have argued when the first Man began; and by this Method I was more prepared to understand and retain the Arguments and the Causes of the Judgments. And besides this, after I had drawn out my Report at large, and before I had entered it into my Book, I shewed such Cases and Arguments, as seemed to me to be the most difficult, and to require the greatest Memory, to some of the Judges or Sergeants who argued in them, in order to have their Opinion of the Sincerity and Truth of the Report." -- Edmund Plowden, preface to his Commentaries

"What Coke was to hail as those 'exquisite and elaborate' Commentaries were thus quite unlike anything that had previously been produced. It was not just that they were the first reports which had been carefully prepared for the press and published in the reporter’s lifetime, … nor even that they included only cases that had been brought to final judgment… For the Commentaries was also a book of leading cases, annotated by an editor at the head of the profession, which by including the pleadings (previously collected only in books of entries) enabled them to be studied in the context of litigation." -- Biographical Dictionary of the Common Law

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

[Year Book, 27 Henry VIII.] De termino Pasche anno regni Regis Henrici Octaui. XXVII (London, 1556).

Printers began publishing Year Book cases in the 1480s. Two and a half centuries of Year Book reporting came to an end with the cases from 27 Henry VIII (1535), shown here. Lawyers, judges and students did not stop reporting cases. The transition from Year Book reports to our modern case reports was gradual, and coincided with a shift from oral to written pleadings.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

[Year Books, 20-45 Edward III.] Liber Assisarum (manuscript in Law French, ca. 1450).

The origin of our case reports lies in the late 13th century, with what are now called the "Year Books." The Liber Assisarum, shown here, is a collection of Year Book cases in the court of King’s Bench in 1347-1372.

The Year Books are quite different from modern case reports. They say little or nothing about the facts, or who won. What interested the anonymous reporters was the debate between advocates and judges, a sort of tentative oral pleading that has been compared to lightning chess. The Year Books seem to have had some connection (still unclear) with legal education at the Inns of Court, but they were also used by bench & bar.

As more or less verbatim records of legal debates between named individuals, the Year Books are virtually the only historical sources that capture voices from the Middle Ages.

Maitland on the Year Books

"Today men are reporting at Edinburgh and Dublin, at Boston and San Francisco, at Quebec and Sydney and Cape Town, at Calcutta and Madras. Their pedigree is unbroken and indisputable. It goes back to some nameless lawyers at Westminster to whom a happy thought had come. What they desired was not a copy of the chilly record, cut and dried, with its concrete particulars concealing the point of law: the record overladen with the uninteresting names of litigants and oblivious of the interesting names of sages, of justices and serjeants. What they desired was the debate with the life-blood in it: the twists and turns of advocacy, the quip courteous and the countercheck quarrelsome." -- Sir Frederick Maitland, 17 Selden Soc. xv.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Case reports are a fundamental source for the study and practice of law in the Anglo-American common law system. "Landmarks in Law Reporting," the Spring 2009 exhibition from the Lillian Goldman Law Library's Rare Book Collection, illustrates the development of law reporting from the Middle Ages to modern times.

The exhibit begins with a manuscript collection of cases from the reign of Edward III, copied in about 1450. Also on display are first editions of the reports of Edmund Plowden (1571), considered the first modern-style reports) and Sir Edward Coke (1600), perhaps the most influential reports). Other "firsts" include the first American case reports (Ephraim Kirby's 1789 reports of Connecticut cases) and the first U.S. Supreme Court reports (Dallas' Reports, 1798).

Recurring themes in the exhibition include the gradual transformation from manuscript to print, the growth of legal publishing, the connections between law reporting and legal education, and the growing demands by lawyers for timely, well-organized reports.

The Rare Books Exhibition Gallery is located in the lower level of the Lillian Goldman Law Library (Level L2), directly in front of the Paskus-Danziger Rare Book Reading Room. For those unable to visit the exhibit in person, stay tuned to the following postings here on the Yale Law Library Rare Books Blog.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the following for their assistance and advice in the research and preparation of this exhibit:

• Morris L. Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Law, Yale Law School
• John H. Langbein, Sterling Professor of Law and Legal History, Yale Law School
• Sabrina Sondhi, Special Collections Librarian, Arthur W. Diamond Law Library, Columbia University

Additional help in mounting the exhibit came from Brian Mendez and Fred Shapiro (Lillian Goldman Law Library), Joanne Kittredge (Yale Law School), and Emma Molina Widener (University of New Haven).

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Image: Volume 2 of Alexander James Dallas, Reports of Cases Ruled and Adjudged in the Several Courts of the United States, and of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1798), containing the first reports of U.S. Supreme Court cases.