The Province of Legislation Determined: Legal Theory in Eighteenth-Century Britain

by David Lieberman

• ISBN13: 9780521528542
• ISBN10: 0521528542
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-07-18
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

A comprehensive account of English legal thought in the age of Blackstone and Bentham for nearly a century, The Province of Legislation Determined advances an ambitious reinterpretation of eighteenth-century attitudes to social change and law reform. Professor Lieberman's bold synthesis rests on a wide survey of legal materials and on a detailed discussion of Blackstone's Commentaries, the jurisprudence of Lord Kames and the Scottish Enlightenment, the chief justiceship of Lord Mansfield, the penal theories of Eden and Romilly, and the legislative science of Jeremy Bentham. The study relates legal developments to the broader fabric of eighteenth-century social and political theory, and offers a novel assessment of the character of the common law tradition and of Bentham's contribution to the ideology of reform.

Table of Contents

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction

Part I. Blackstone and the Commentaries: 1. The law of England

2. Blackstone's science of legislation

Part II. The Judiciary: 3. Equity, principle and precedent

4. Legal principles and law reform

5. Mansfield and the commercial code

6. Common law, principle and precedent

7. Kames, legal history and law reform

8. Kames and the principles of equity

Part III. Parliamentary Statute: 9. Statute consolidation

10. Penal law reform

Part IV. Bentham: 11. The critique of common law

12. The Digest

13. From Blackstone to the Pannomion

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index.