A Sketch of English Legal History - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II English Law Under Norman Rule And The Legal Reforms Of Henry II., 1066-1216 English Law tinder Norman Rule. The Normans when they invaded England were in one important particular a less civilized race than were those English whom they came to subjugate. We may say with some certainty that they had no written laws. A century and a half ago a king of the Franks had been compelled to cede a large province to a horde of Scandinavian pirates. The pirates had settled down as lords of a conquered people; they had gradually adopted the religion, the language, and the civilization (such as it was) of the vanquished; they had become Frenchmen. They may have paid some reverence to the written laws of the Frankish race, to the very ancient Lex Salica and the capitularies of Merovingian and Carlovingian kings. But these were fast becoming obsolete, and neither the dukes of the Normans, nor their nominal overlords, the kings of the Franks or French, could issue written dooms such as those which Canute was publishing in England. Some excellent traditions of a far-off past, of the rule of Charles the Great (800-14), the invaders could bring with them to England; and these, transplanted into the soil of a subject kingdom, could burst into new life and bear new fruit--the great record that we call "Domesday Book" is a splendid firstfruit--but written laws they had none. To all seeming, the Conqueror meant that his English subjects should keep their own old laws. Merely Duke of the Normans, he was going to be King in England, and he was not dissatisfied with those royal rights which, according to his version of the story, had descended to him from King Edward. About a few points he legislated. For example, the lives of his followers were to be...