Blackstone, the ancient constitution and the feudal law

The Historical Journal

Volumn 28, Issue 3, 1985, Pages 711-717

  Cairns, John ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84972271604     PISSN: 0018246X     EISSN: 14695103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X00003381     Document Type: Article

References (26)

1. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the laws of England (hereafter cited as Comm.) (Oxford, 1765–1769). Page references here for convenience will conform to the established practice of citing not the first, but the last edition in Blackstone's lifetime (the 8th).
2. For a bibliography, see the references in J. W. Cairns, ‘Blackstone, an English institutist: legal literature and the rise of the nation state’, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 4, 3 (1984), 318–360.
3. S. F. C. Milsom, ‘The nature of Blackstone's achievement’, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 1, 1 (1981), 1–12, at p. 2.
4. Robert Willman, ‘Blackstone and the “theoretical perfection” of English law in the reign of Charles II’, Historical Journal 26, 1 (1983), 39–70.
5. II Comm. 77. 6 31 Car. II, c. 2; I Comm. 137.
6. J. G. A. Pocock, The ancient constitution and the feudal law (Cambridge, 1957).
7. II Comm. 46-47; IV Comm. 413. Comm. 413; II Comm. 48.
8. II Comm. 79–81. 21 II Comm. 85.
9. II Comm. 45–47. 24 II Comm. 48.
10. II Comm. 48.
11. II Comm. 48. It is interesting to note that in the first edition of the Commentaries Blackstone made no mention of the ‘Norman barons’, so that the passage much more clearly and emphatically stresses that the English consented to the introduction of feudalism.
12. II Comm. 48–49. 28 II Comm. 49.
13. II Comm. 49–50. It is useful to note that in the first edition he is more definite that this was when the feudal polity was introduced, as he states of the events at Sarum, ‘This seems to have been the aera of formally introducing the feodal tenures by law’.
14. II Comm. 50–51. 31 II Comm. 51. 32 II Comm. 51–2.
15. II Comm. 62–63. 34 II Comm. 48–52. 35II Comm. 77.
16. IV Comm. 412–414. 37 IV Comm. 413. 38 IV Comm. 414–15.
17. IV Comm. 418. 40 II Comm. 78.
18. II Comm. 78. 42 II Comm. 79–81. 43 II Comm. 81.
19. II Comm. 81–85. 45 II Comm. 83. 46 II Comm. 84.
20. II Comm. 84. 48 II Comm. 85. 49 II Comm. 85.
21. II Comm. 86–9. 51 II Comm. 85. 52 II Comm. 85.
22. II Comm. 50.
23. II Comm. 48–52. On knight-service see II Comm. 62–3.
24. As well as the examples already cited, see II Comm. 52, where he states that William the Conqueror and William Rufus ‘ kept up with a high hand all the rigours of the feodal doctrines’ which he contrasts with the actions of Henry I, who promised ‘ a restitution of the laws of king Edward the confessor, or antient Saxon system’, even if he did not properly carry this out.
25. In III Comm. 317 law French is described as an ‘evident and shameful badge. of tyranny and foreign servitude’. Cf. IV Comm. 416, 419 and 441.
26. IV Comm. 438.