Diploma in The Common Law

Laws modules

History of English law [2660012]

Outline of the Anglo-Saxon legal system: Anglo-Saxon laws and charters, the role of the royal Witan, local courts and local justice.

Courts of the Common Law: the King's council, the King's bench, the common bench or common pleas, the court of exchequer, the court of chancery, prerogative or conciliar courts (Admiralty, Marshal, Requests, 'Star Chamber', Privy Council). The various appellate tribunals.

Mercantile, seigniorial and ecclesiastical courts and their jurisdictions (excluding details of remedies and substantive rules).

Procedure: writs and bills, the forms of action, the modes of proof (ordeal, battle, jury, compurgation), witnesses and evidence, methods of execution of judgements, review of verdicts and judgements.

Land law: Feudalism and tenures, estates for life (dower, courtesy), conditional fees, the entail (creation and barring), the term of years (including ejectment), uses, trusts and future executory interests, perpetuities and settlements (in outline only and excluding the history of the law of wills).

Contract and Tort: actions of debt, detinue and covenant; trespass and case; assumpsit, conversion, deceit and defamation; equitable remedies for breach of contract; doctrine of consideration; rise of negligence.

Criminal law: appeals and indictments, the nature of felony, trespass and misdemeanour, benefit of clergy, sanctuary.

[Note: Questions will not be set on the history of constitutional and administrative law nor upon substantive topics in the common law not indicated above. Questions will not require a knowledge of the period after 1876 (with effect from the examination in 2001, questions will not require a knowledge of the period after 1907).]