Baker and Milsom Sources of English Legal History (2^nd Ed.)
Private Law to 1750

Baker and Milsom's Sources of English Legal History is the definitive source book on the development of English private law. This new edition has been comprehensively revised and udpated to incorporate new sources discovered since the original publication in 1986, and to reflect developments in recent scholarship. All the sources included are translated into modern English, offering an accessible inroad to the leading primary materials for students of the history of the common law. The sources themselves - revealing the operation of courts across a wide range of personal and economic disputes - offer a rich resource for historians researching the development of the English government, society, and economy. Their significance in shaping the common law spans beyond England, and ensures the collection is an essential reference point for all those interested in the history of the common law in any jurisdiction.

Preface to the second edition. Preface to the first edition. 1. Tenure: services and incidents. 2. Actions concerning land. 3. Family interests and settlements at common law. 4. Uses, wills, and trusts. 5. Executory interests under the Statute of Uses. 6. The term of years. 7. Copyhold. 8. Debt. 9. Detinue. 10. Covenant. 11. Account. 12. Trespass. 13. Trespass on the case. 14. Assumpsit for misfeasance. 15. Assumpsit for nonfeasance. 16. Assumpsit in lieu of debt. 17. Assumpsit against executors for money. 18. Various developments of the money counts. 19. Consideration and privity. 20. Actions on the case for deceit. 21. Actions on the case for conversion. 22. Actions on the case for negligence. 23. Actions on the case for nuisance. 24. Actions on the case for various kinds of economic loss. 25. Actions on the case for defamation. Index.

Sir John Baker is Downing Professor Emeritus of the Laws of England and Honorary Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. He is an Honorary Bencher of the Inner Temple and was knighted for his services to legal history in 2003.