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.