Table of Contents
Chapters:
1. Tort law as the first written law: to 600 2. Oaths and perjury: 600-900 3. Marriage law: 900-1066 4. Martial "law": 1066-1100 5. Criminal law and prosecution: 1100-1154 6. Common Law for all freemen: 1154-1215 7. Magna Carta: the first statute: 1215-1272 8. Land law: 1272-1348 9. Legislating the economy: 1348-1399 10. Equity from Chancery Court: 1399-1485 11. Use-trust of land: 1485-1509 12. Wills and testaments of lands and goods: 1509-1558 13. Consideration and contract Law: 1558-1601 14. Welfare for the poor: 1601-1625 15. Independence of the courts: 1625-1642 16. Freedom of religion: 1642-1660 17. Habeas Corpus: 1660-1702 18. Service of Process instead of arrest: 1702-1776
Appendix: Sovereigns of England
Bibliography
Chapter 1
The Times: before 600 A.D.
The settlement of England goes back thousands of years. At first, people hunted and gathered their food. They wore animal skins over their bodies for warmth and around their feet for protection when walking. These skins were sewn together with bone needles and threads made from animal sinews. They carried small items by hooking them onto their belts. They used bone and stone tools, e.g. for preparing skins. Their uncombed hair was held by thistlethorns, animal spines, or straight bone hair pins. They wore conical hats of bound rush and lived in rush shelters.
Early clans, headed by kings, lived in huts on top of hills or other high places and fortified by circular or contour earth ditches and banks behind which they could gather for protection. They were probably dug with antler picks and wood spades. The people lived in rectangular huts with four wood posts supporting a roof. The walls were made of saplings, and a mixture of mud and straw. Cooking was in a clay oven inside or over an open fire on the outside. Water was carried in animal skins or leather pouches from springs lower on the hill up to the settlement. Forests abounded with wolves, bears, deer, wild boars, and wild cattle. They could more easily be seen from the hill tops. Pathways extended through this camp of huts and for many miles beyond.
For wives, men married women of their clan or bought or captured other women, perhaps with the help of a best man. They carried their unwilling wives over the thresholds of their huts, which were sometimes in places kept secret from her family. The first month of marriage was called the honeymoon because the couple was given mead, a drink with fermented honey and herbs, for the first month of their marriage. A wife wore a gold wedding band on the ring finger of her left hand to show that she was married.