The continuation, first published in 1943, of Adolphus Ballard and James Tait's study of medieval borough charters.

Adolphus Ballard (1867-1915) was an English historian specialising in the medieval history of the borough. This volume, first published in 1913, was the first major examination of borough charters from the early medieval period. Ballard analyses an extensive collection of municipal documents and charters dating from before 1216 to understand the stages in the origin and development of boroughs, their mercantile and jurisdictional privileges and the relationship of burgage privileges and finances to those in other boroughs. The first half of the book discusses these topics in detail, with three supplementary essays concerning the essentials of the borough, its development as a legal entity, and comparisons with borough developments in other European countries which provide additional historical context. The second half gives the Latin text and English translations of the collection of documents analysed in the first part.

Excerpt from British Borough Charters, 1216-1307 Dolphus ballard, who died in 1915 at the early age of forty-eight, was a conspicuous instance of single-minded and fruitful devotion to a chosen study. The son of an alderman of Chichester, and himself for many years town clerk of what he liked to describe as the smallest borough in England, his innate zest of inquiry naturally turned to the field of town history. It was quickened and widened by the striking results of the researches of Gross, Maitland and Miss Bateson into municipal origins in this country. After preparing the ground by a series of studies and articles, he published in 1913 his British Borough Charters 1042 - 1216, which established him in the position of leading authority on early municipal growth in the British Isles. A further volume, to extend to the end of the reign of Edward I was projected and by the time of his death about nine-tenths of the charters had been copied and typed. A few notes and textual corrections were made, provisional dates were affixed to the undated charters and the position of each clause in his subject classification was indicated on the slips, but the introduction still remained to be written and the tables of sources and contents to be drawn up. A page or two of rough jottings was the only guide left to the very varied and Widely scattered sources from Which he had drawn the charters. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This study analyzes the development of criminal law during the first several generations of American life. Its comparison of the substantive and procedural law among the colonies reveals the similarities and differences between the New England and the Chesapeake colonies. Bradley Chapin addresses the often-debated question of the “reception” of English law and makes estimates of the relative weight of the sources and methods of early American law. A main theme of his book is that colonial legislators and judges achieved a significant reform of the English criminal law at a time when a parallel movement in England failed. The analysis is made specific and concrete by statistics that show patterns of prosecutions and crime rates. In addition to the exciting and convincing theme of a “lost period” of great creativity in American criminal law, Chapin gives a wealth of detail on statutory and common-law rulings, noteworthy criminal cases, and judicial views of how the law was to be administered. He provides social and economic explanations of shifts and peculiarities in the law, using carefully arranged evidence from the records. His treatment of the Quaker cases in Massachusetts and the witchcraft prosecutions in New England throws new light on those frequently misunderstood episodes. Chapin's book will be of interest not only to scholars working in the field but also to anyone curious about early American legal history.

This important study examines the market trade of medieval England by providing a wide-ranging critique of the moral and legal imperatives that underpinned retail trade. James Davis shows how market-goers were influenced not only by practical and economic considerations of price, quality, supply and demand, but also by the moral and cultural environment within which such deals were conducted. This book draws on a broad range of cross-disciplinary evidence, from the literary works of William Langland and the sermons of medieval preachers, to state, civic and guild laws, Davis scrutinises everyday market behaviour through case studies of small and large towns, using the evidence of manor and borough courts. From these varied sources, Davis teases out the complex relationship between morality, law and practice and demonstrates that even the influence of contemporary Christian ideology was not necessarily incompatible with efficient and profitable everyday commerce.

Analytic survey of the changing face of England, countryside and town, from the coming of the Anglo-Saxons to 1914.

English local and regional history has attracted widespread attention in the last twenty-five to thirty years. Its study has expanded at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in universities, polytechnics, and at other institutions of higher education, and it has long retained its popularity as a subject for adult education classes. In schools the teaching of local history in its own right, and as an ingredient of general history, environmental studies, and local and social studies, is well established, and commonly involves the use of original sources. The expansion of genealogical studies into the wider area of family history has involved many individuals and groups in the investigation of the local conditions, which existed where former generations lived and, in this pursuit, increasing use of local records has been made. Many who seek to involve themselves in this work, however, find that they are ill-equipped in the knowledge of what sources exist, where they are to be found, or what techniques are suitable in making the best use of them.