The Law's Two Bodies Some Evidential Problems in English Legal History [Hardcover]

The volume examines the informal sources of English Law that lie undiscovered because they are not included in Statutes, law reports, or in current legal teaching. Through his work with primary documents the author shows that this informal source of law is too important to go unnoticed by legal historians and commentators.

I. Case-Law and Statute-Law
II. Legal Fictions
III. Common Usage and Common Learning
Appendices: Some Illustrated Texts
A. Common Practice and Communis Error
B. Fictions in Writs and Pleadings
C. Fictions in Trial: Benefit of Clergy for Laymen
D. Linguistic Fictions
E. Improper Fictions
F. Common Learning
G. Opinions of Counsel
Index

John Baker is Downing Professor of the Laws of England.