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CHAPTER 14 PROFESSIONAL LITERATURE SUMMARY The Anglo-Saxon Age Anglo.Norman Legal Literatlfre Henry II: GlanviIJ's Treatise The Beginning. ofthe Public Records Henry III: Bracton Brae/on's Use ofCases Braeton 's Note Book Bracton '! Romanism Bratlon's Infllllnc, Braetonism and Parliamenlarilm Brat/on's Imilators The Minor Treatises The Origin of the Year Books Change! in the Year Books The Later Year B(J(JksThe Oiject of the Year Books The Abridgmenls The Register of Writs Littleton 's Tentlres The Works ofFor/esme Doctor and Student The Reporters The Later Treatises: Coke Selden : Prynne: HaleBlackstone Blaclil!tone'! StlCCfSS(lrJ The Rift ofthe Modern Text-Book PAGE 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 264 265 266 268 269 271 272 273 276 277 278 279 280 281 284 285 288 288 "Legal precepts and legal institutions are far from being all with which we have to do. Indeed, in the everyday administration of justice, along with legal precepts, the traditional art of the lawyer's craft-the traditional mode of selecting, developing, and applying the received legal materials, the ttaditional technique of finding the grounds of decision in those materials and of developing them into a judgment-is a factor of no less importance. That art, and a certain body of received ideals as to the end of law and what legal precepts should be in view thereof, are in truth much more enduring than legal precepts. They give unity and continuity to legal development. They make the lawyers of to-day conscious of kinship with the lawyers of the sixteenth century, and even with the grl!at lawyers of the middle ages, and giye us a sense of continuity from the Year Books 10 the 252 PROFESSIONAL LITERATURE 253 present, which would have little warrant if we looked only at institutions and at legal precepts. They give unity to the law of English-speaking peoples throughout the world. For, diverse as the social, economic, political, and physical conditions may be, diverse as legislation may be, far as statute or judicial decision may have departed from the common legal materials of the seventeenth century, and divergent as the paths of departure may be, the lawyers In England, the United States, Canada, and Australia feel that they live under what is essentially one legal system, and each knows at once how to make use of the other's law. An American lawyer uses recent English or Canadian or Australian decisions with entire assurance because they are made to be used as he knows how to use them. The American legislator knows, as it were instinctively, how to adapt English or Canadian or Australian legislation because it has been drawn to be used as he knows how to use it. The traditional art of applying it, and of developing it into grounds of decision of particular controversies, is familiar to him. On the other hand, when the American lawyer seeks to use the legal materials of the Roman law or of the modern Romanlaw world, he proceeds blunderingly and with a certain consciousness ofhelplessness. For these materials took shape for a wholly different technique. The traditional art ofdeveloping grounds ofdecision from them and applying them is very different from our own, and they are adapted to that technique. Ours is a technique of utilizing recorded judicial experience. The civilian's is a technique of finding his grounds of decision in written texts. Even when we have written texts, as in American constitutional law, we proceed at once to look at them through the spectacles of the common law, and our method is not one of development of the text but of development of judicially found grounds of decision which, if they began in the text, have since led an independent existence."l The words we have just quoted clearly define the point of view from which historical sources are best studied. It is, ofcourse, necessary that the would-be legal historian should know what sources are available and should understand their value and their use. But the study of the sources of legal history has a wider and more general significance. Besides being the sources which the modern historian uses in reconstructing the past, these sources were also the tools in daily use by ancient lawyers. It was by the constant use of the reports, registers, pamphlets and other works which we shall mention that the lawyers of former days gained their living, and, as in every other...

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