Natural law is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law. According to the theory of law called jusnaturalism, all people have inherent rights, conferred not by act of legislation but by "God, nature, or reason." Natural law theory can also refer to "theories of ethics, theories of politics, theories of civil law, and theories of religious morality."
In English, the phrase rule of thumb refers to an approximate method for doing something, based on practical experience rather than theory. This usage of the phrase can be traced back to the 17th century and has been associated with various trades where quantities were measured by comparison to the width or length of a thumb.
Sir Matthew Hale was an influential English barrister, judge and jurist most noted for his treatise Historia Placitorum Coronæ, or The History of the Pleas of the Crown.
Sir William Blackstone was an English jurist, justice and Tory politician most noted for writing the Commentaries on the Laws of England which became the best-known description of the doctrines of English law. Born into a middle-class family in London, Blackstone was educated at Charterhouse School before matriculating at Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1738. After switching to and completing a Bachelor of Civil Law degree, he was made a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, on 2 November 1743, admitted to Middle Temple, and called to the Bar there in 1746. Following a slow start to his career as a barrister, Blackstone became heavily involved in university administration, becoming accountant, treasurer and bursar on 28 November 1746 and Senior Bursar in 1750. Blackstone is considered responsible for completing the Codrington Library and Warton Building, and simplifying the complex accounting system used by the college. On 3 July 1753 he formally gave up his practice as a barrister and instead embarked on a series of lectures on English law, the first of their kind. These were massively successful, earning him a total of £453, and led to the publication of An Analysis of the Laws of England in 1756, which repeatedly sold out and was used to preface his later works.
The Commentaries on the Laws of England are an influential 18th-century treatise on the common law of England by Sir William Blackstone, originally published by the Clarendon Press at Oxford between 1765 and 1769. The work is divided into four volumes, on the rights of persons, the rights of things, of private wrongs and of public wrongs.
Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart was an English legal philosopher. He was the Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University and the Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford. His most famous work is The Concept of Law, which has been hailed as "the most important work of legal philosophy written in the twentieth century". He is considered one of the world's foremost legal philosophers in the twentieth century.
The Concept of Law is a 1961 book by the legal philosopher H. L. A. Hart and his most famous work. The Concept of Law presents Hart's theory of legal positivism—the view that laws are rules made by humans and that there is no inherent or necessary connection between law and morality—within the framework of analytic philosophy. Hart sought to provide a theory of descriptive sociology and analytical jurisprudence. The book addresses a number of traditional jurisprudential topics such as the nature of law, whether laws are rules, and the relation between law and morality. Hart answers these by placing law into a social context while at the same time leaving the capability for rigorous analysis of legal terms, which in effect "awakened English jurisprudence from its comfortable slumbers".
John Mitchell Finnis,, is an Australian legal philosopher and jurist specializing in jurisprudence and the philosophy of law. He is an original interpreter of Aristotle and Aquinas, and counts Germain Grisez as a major influence and collaborator. He has made contributions to epistemology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy.
Sir William Searle Holdsworth was an English legal historian and Vinerian Professor of English Law at Oxford University, amongst whose works is the 17-volume History of English Law.
The Vinerian Professorship of English Law, formerly Vinerian Professorship of Common Law, was established by Charles Viner who by his will, dated 29 December 1755, left about £12,000 to the Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford, to establish a Professorship of the Common Law in that University, as well as a number of Vinerian scholarships and readerships.
Wilfrid Prest, AM is a historian, specialising in legal history, who is professor emeritus at the University of Adelaide. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Australian Academy of the Humanities, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and Queen's College, University of Melbourne, and a member of the Council of the Selden Society, London.
Books of authority is a term used by legal writers to refer to a number of early legal textbooks that are excepted from the rule that textbooks are not treated as authorities by the courts of England and Wales and other common law jurisdictions.
A law book is a book about law. It is possible to make a distinction between "law books" on the one hand, and "books about law" on the other. This distinction is "useful". A law book is "a work of legal doctrine". It consists of "law talk", that is to say, propositions of law. "The first duty of a law book is to state the law as it is, truly and accurately, and then the reason or principle for it as far as it is known". The "first requisite in a law-book is perfect accuracy". A "law book is supposed to state what the law is rather than what it is not". "One great desideratum in a law book is facility of reference". A "list of law books and related materials" is a legal bibliography.
A Discourse on the Study of the Law is a treatise by Sir William Blackstone first published in 1758. On 20 October 1758 Blackstone had been confirmed as the first Vinerian Professor of English Law, and immediately gave a lecture on 24 October, which was reprinted as the Discourse.
Commentaries on American Law is a four-volume book by James Kent. It was adapted from his lectures at Columbia Law School starting in 1794. It was first published in 1826 by O. Halsted and has been reprinted and revised many times since. A twelfth edition was edited by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. A fourteenth edition edited by John M. Gould was published in 1896, and a fifteenth edition edited by Jon Roland was published 1997-2002.
Danby Pickering was an English legal writer.
Anthony Hammond (1758–1838) was an English barrister and legal writer, known as a legal reformer. His reform proposals for legal codification, influenced by Jeremy Bentham but also by Robert Malthus, went further than was acceptable at the time.
The writ of estrepement, or de estrepamento, was a writ in common law countries that would be used to prevent estrepement, a type of 'voluntary waste'. The waste that the writ would issue to prevent would be waste that occurred in response to a lawsuit seeking possession of the land, or a judgment against the waster where possession had not yet been delivered.
Thomas Bever was an English civil lawyer and legal writer. He is known also as an antiquarian scholar and patron.
The Doctor and Student: Or Dialogues between a Doctor of Divinity and a Student in the Laws of England is a legal treatise by Christopher St. Germain, first published in the early 16th century. As its name suggests, the work is structured as a set of dialogues between the eponymous doctor, a doctor of divinity; and a student of the English common law. Doctor and Student explores the relationship between the common law and equity and distinguishes a number of sources of legal principles. It was an important text for English law students at least until William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England was published in the mid-18th century.
