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In Lent Term 1668/9, John Vincent, a bencher of Gray’s Inn, gave a reading on the Merchants’ Assurances Act 1601 (43 Eliz. I, c.12). The notes of the law reporter, Joseph Keble, record this observance of the centuries-old tradition of readings, which was destined to expire within the next two decades. This paper situates Vincent’s reading within the changing tradition of readings in the seventeenth century. It highlights the role readings continued to play in disseminating sophisticated legal learning, particularly in relation to newer areas of practice such as marine insurance, which were largely uninformed by statute, common law precedent or reference works, and would have been difficult to master through book-study alone. It examines a selection of issues discussed during the reading, focussing on legal outcomes grounded in the ‘customs’, usages, practices and understandings of merchants, and illustrating how these were perceived as exceptional by comparison to the ordinary rules of the common law. The nature and jurisdiction of London’s court of assurances, reconstituted and empowered by the 1601 Act, are also discussed. More generally, this paper demonstrates the value of post-Restoration readings for historians of English law in the late seventeenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the origins of trade secrecy law from the beginning of the seventeenth century untilMorisonvMoat(1851), described by theOxford History of the Laws of Englandas ‘foundational’. The paper reveals something of a conundrum. The first part shows that although the prevalence of guild ordinances would have familiarized many with the concept of ‘lawful secrets’, these provisions could no longer be enforced in the guild courts by the late seventeenth century, or within the wider jurisdiction of the courts of the City of London. Instead, as the second half of the paper shows, it was the law courts proper that came to provide succour to those working trade secrets, allowing them to both restrain employees from using secrets for their own benefit and/or to sell secrets to other parties. This was a halting process, but one that had certainly begun prior to Morison. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

David Millon argued in a 1989 article that medieval and early modern legal historians had been beguiled into supposing that civil litigation in these periods was decided in accordance with the ‘official’ legal doctrine found in law reports, plea roll arguments and Inns of Court readings when in reality their outcome was generally determined by juries exercising their own normative discretion in reaching their verdicts. This paper challenges this pessimistic conclusion, at least for the period around 1300. It demonstrates from evidence drawn from plea rolls and mainly manuscript law reports the degree of judicial control over juries exercised within the courtroom and the way in which jury verdicts were considered, and not just accepted, by courts. It also argues that the application of substantive legal rules by judges for the decision of litigation was a more important phenomenon than Millon supposed and that legal rules were also regularly invoked and applied in the preliminary pleading in cases and thereby shaped and determined the issues which went for jury decision. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Duke of Somerset v Cookson (1735) occupies an important place in English legal history as a leading authority for Chancery jurisdiction to order specific delivery of movable property where an award of damages would be inadequate. The property at issue was the Corbridge lanx, now in the British Museum, but then claimed as treasure trove by the duke of Somerset as lord of the manor of Corbridge. This paper re-examines Cookson as the first reported English decision relating to treasure trove, and uses later treasure trove claims by the duke of Somerset's successors to the manor of Corbridge, the dukes of Northumberland, to shed fresh light on the 1735 decision and on the development of treasure trove practice from the eighteenth century onwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regulation of market activities, by both local and central authorities, has been studied in some detail, but the interrelationship between the two has received considerably less attention. This paper examines market regulations and their enforcement in London prior to the Black Death, including measures to control prices, wages, forestalling, product quality, etc. It argues that, although London officials were often obliged to enforce royal orders relative to market activities, the economic policies elaborated by the mayor and aldermen had a significant impact on those adopted by the Crown and applied throughout the realm, particularly on the Ordinance of Labourers of 1349. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On 18 December 1742, Thomas Hill, defendant in the Chancery proceedings in the leading trade mark case, Blanchard v Hill, won a celebrated victory against a representative of the Worshipful Company of the Makers of Playing Cards in the City of London. On 7 December 1743, he was convicted of a revenue offence against the Crown and sentenced to death. No mercy was shown, and on 17 February 1744 he was removed from Newgate prison to Tyburn, where he was hanged. This short note, a postscript to a paper published in 2003, explores the connection between Hill's success in Chancery and his trial and execution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the responses of the English legal system to the radically changing relationship between the arts and conventional morality during the period 1780 to 1959. The art for art's sake movement is identified as being a significant catalyst in the process whereby the arts became removed from traditional moral constraints and the response of the courts in their application of the common law of obscene libel is considered in light of this influence. The replacement of the common law of obscenity by the Obscene Publications Act in 1959 concludes the discussion, the inclusion of a public good defence marking a crucial turning point in this area of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sir John Fastolf was a wealthy fifteenth-century knight and a successful military commander in the wars with France. During the last decade of his life, he was involved in a number of legal disputes with his East Anglian adversaries, the supporters of the duke of Suffolk. This paper studies one of those disputes, which involved conspiracy and attaint actions between John Andrew, a Suffolk adherent, and Thomas Howes and John Porter, two Fastolf servants. This dispute is interesting for two reasons. Most importantly, it shows that one cannot fully understand the operation of the fifteenth-century legal system without an awareness of the social and political context of litigation. Some contemporary litigation had a clear political nature and political considerations influenced the resolution of legal issues. All aspects of this litigation illustrate the interrelation between the operation of the legal and political systems. Often, legal actions and institutions were vehicles and arenas for political disputes. This litigation also offers an opportunity to explore some fifteenth-century legal issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A few weeks before the Licensing Act finally lapsed in May 1695, the Court of Chivalry heard three cases relating to the publication of ‘unauthorised’ prints of the ‘funeral pomp’ of Mary II. In one of these, a leading London publisher of prints, John Overton, was ordered to deliver up the plates from which his print of the queen's lying in state had been made, along with all copies of the print, despite the fact that the Licensing Act did not apply to prints sold separately and the Court of Chivalry had in any case no jurisdiction to enforce press control. Brief records of the cases survive in the College of Arms. This paper sets out to explain and interpret these fragments against the background of the last days of pre-publication censorship in England. Press licensing is first examined with reference to the press coverage following the death of the queen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is hardly any legal institution which better characterizes the thinking and everyday practice of the common law family than the legal institution of the trust. The English common law developed it during the Middle Ages, and it remains popular to this day. The institution of the trust is a unique phenomenon of the common law. Surprisingly, the Zoroastrian community of the Sassanian period in Persia developed some legal techniques which are very close to the common law trust. In this paper I will show the peculiarities and history of what I call the Zoroastrian trust, and hope to establish the basic similarity between the two. What makes this comparison easier is the fact that the two legal institutions developed independently from each other, since there is no possibility of historical interactions between Sassanian Persia (third-seventh centuries AD) and England during the Middle Ages. It is also impossible to speak about common or similar religious, cultural and legal backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about several papers discussed at a symposium organized by professor Andrew Lewis at the City University in London, England is presented. The symposium aims to present some of the findings of professor Marin Dockray's research on the Zong case, and it explores the possibility of promoting publication of the materials which he had discovered.