In the reading lists that follow, items marked * are required reading for all students. Other readings are for those who want to go deeper into the topic, for example in order to write an extended essay.

For a broad essay on the purposes of legal history and its relationship with economics and other social sciences see:
Joshua Getzler, ‘Law, History and the Social Sciences: Intellectual Traditions of Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Europe’ in M.Lobban and A.Lewis, eds., Law and History, Current Legal Issues, Vol. 6 (2003) 215-63

Seminar 1: Property Rights I

Theoretical approaches to property rights

• Coase, 'The Problem of Social Cost' (1960) 3 Journal of Law and Economics 1
• *Posner, 'Ronald Coase and Methodology', in (1993) 7 Journal of Economic Perspectives 195 & Overcoming Law (1995) ch. 20, pp. 406 ff.
• *Hardin, 'The Tragedy of the Commons' in Ackerman, ed., Economic Foundations of Property Law
• *Getzler, 'Theories of Property and Economic Development' (1996) 26:4 Journal of Interdisciplinary History 639
• Barzel, Economic Analysis of Property Rights (1989, 2nd ed 1997)
• Cooter, 'The Cost of Coase' (1982) 11 Journal of Legal Studies 1, summarized in Cooter, 'Coase Theorem', in the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (1987, Vol. 1, 457)
• De Meza, 'Coase theorem', The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law (1998, Vol. 1, 270)
• Demsetz, 'Towards a Theory of Property Rights' (1967) 57 American Economic Review 347
• Dworkin, 'Is Wealth a Value?' in A Matter of Principle (1986) ch. 12, pp. 237 ff.
• Ostrom, Governing the Commons (1990)
• Rose, 'The Comedy of the Commons' (1986) 53 U Chicago Law Review 711
• Rudden, ‘Economic Theory v. Property Law: The Numerus Clausus Problem’, in Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence, Third Series (1987) 239
• Ellickson, 'Property in Land' (1993) 102 Yale Law Journal 1315

Land Titles

Proving medieval title

• *Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History (4th ed., 2002) chs. 13 and 14
• *Simpson, A History of the Land Law (2nd ed., 1986) 1-51
• *Milsom, Historical Foundations of the Common Law (2nd. ed., 1981) 99-151, 200-222
• Milsom, Legal Framework of English Feudalism (1976)
• *Brand, 'The Origins of English Land Law: Milsom and After', in The Making of the Common Law (1993) 203ff

Proving modern title

• *Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History (4th ed., 2002) chs. 14-16
• *Simpson, A History of the Land Law (2nd ed., 1986) ch. 11
• *Spring, 'Landowners, Lawyers and Land Law Reform in Nineteenth-Century England' (1977) 21 AmJLegHist 40
• Spring, 'The Settlement of Land in Nineteenth Century England' (1963) 8 Am JLegHist 209
• Spring, Law, Land and Family: Aristocratic Inheritance in England 1300-1800 (1993)
• *Cornish and Clark, Law and Society in England 1750-1950 (1989) ch. 2
• *Offer, Property and Politics, 1870-1914 (1981) 11-87
• *Offer, 'The Origins of the Law of Property Acts 1910-25' (1977) 40 Modern Law Review 505
• Anderson, Lawyers and the Making of English Land Law, 1832-1940 (1992) ch. 9
• Offer, 'Lawyers and Land Law Revisited' (1994) 14 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 269
• *Getzler, review essay of Offer and Anderson (1993) 109 Law Quarterly Review 684
• *Pottage, 'Proprietary strategies: the legal fabric of aristocratic settlements' (1998) 61 Modern Law Review 162
• Pottage, 'The Measure of Land' (1994) 57 Modern Law Review 361

Essays:

1. Why have economic and legal theorists assumed that clearly defined property rights promote economic activity? Is this assumption theoretically justified?
OR
2. What were the stages in the evolution of a system of well-defined property titles to land in England? Why did landowners and lawyers not care more about the lack of precision and clarity of land titles?

[answer one question and be prepared to discuss the other]

Seminar 2: Property Rights II

Enclosure

• Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (1996)
• *Allen, Enclosure and the Yeoman: The Agricultural Development of the South Midlands, 1450-1850 (1992) 235-311
• Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (1996)
• *Clark, 'Agriculture and the Industrial Revolution, 1700-1850' in Mokyr, ed., The British Industrial Revolution: An Economic Perspective (1993) 227-66
• *Getzler, 'Judges and Hunters: Law and Economic Conflict in the English Countryside, 1800-60' in: Brooks and Lobban, eds., Communities and Courts (1997) 199
• *Thompson, 'Custom, Law and Common Right', in Customs in Common (1991, 1993), 97-184
• *Sharman, 'An Introduction to the Enclosure Acts', (1989) 10 Journal of Legal History 45-70
• Neeson, Commoners: Common Rights, Enclosure and Social Change in Common-Field England, 1700-1820 (1993)
• *King, 'The Origins of the Gleaning Judgement of 1788, A Case Study of Legal Change, Customary Right and Social Conflict in Late Eighteenth Century England', 10 Law and History Review 1-31
• King, 'Gleaners, Farmers and the Failure of Legal Sanctions in England 1750-1850', (1989) 125 Past and Present 116-150
• Cornish and Clark, Law and Society in England 1750-1950 (1989) ch. 2
• Smith, 'Semicommon Property Rights and Scattering in the Open Fields' (2000) 29 J Legal Stud 131

Essay: What were some of the justifications offered for concentrating land use rights in a single owner between the 16th and the 19th centuries? In what sense were property rights 'absolute'?

Seminar 3: Property Rights III

Land Use

• *Brenner, 'Nuisance Law and the Industrial Revolution' (1973) 3 Journal of Legal Studies 403
• *McLaren, 'Nuisance Law and the Industrial Revolution: Some Lessons From Social History' (1983) 3 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 155
• *Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law 1780-1860 (1977) ch. 2
• Karsten, Heart Versus Head: Judge Made Law in Nineteenth Century America (1997)
• *Simpson, Leading Cases in the Common Law (1997) chs. 7 & 8
• *Simpson, 'Victorian Law and the Industrial Spirit', Selden Society Lecture (1995)
• Simpson, 'Coase v. Pigou Reexamined' (1996) 25 Journal of Legal Studies 53
• Rose, 'Crystals and Mud in Property Law' (1988) 40 Stanford Law Review 577
• *Rose, 'Energy and Efficiency in the Realignment of Common Law Water Rights' (1990) 19 Journal of Legal Studies 261
• *Joshua Getzler, A History of Water Rights at Common Law (2004, pb 2006) esp Introduction and ch 1, Conclusion
• Getzler, ‘Easements’ forthcoming in Katz, chief ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Legal History, on request from author.

Essay: Do modern interpretations of modern land use law stressing a pro-capitalist judicial ideology convince?

Seminar 4: Company Law and Business Association

• Coase, 'The Nature of the Firm' (1937) 4 Economica 386-405 (you are welcome to explore the literature generated by Coase's 'other classical article' if you wish)
• Smith, Adam, The Wealth of Nations (Glasgow edition, ed. Campbell and Skinner, 1976) pp. 140-146, 731-758
• Newman (ed.), The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law (1998)
  vol. 1, pp.266-268: 'Coase'
  vol. 1, pp.503-511: 'Corporate law'
  vol. 2, pp.581-590: 'Limited and extended liability regimes'
• Cornish and Clark, Law and Society in England 1750-1950 (1989) pp. 244-266
• Gower, Principles of Modern Company Law (6th ed. by Davies 1997) pp. 18-48
• *Harris, Industrializing English Law: Entrepreneurship and Business Organization, 1720-1844 (2000) pp. 1-81, 110-167, 287-293
• Harris, 'The Formation of the East India Company as a Cooperation-Enhancing Institution' (December 2005). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=874406
• Kostal, Law and English Railway Capitalism (1994) pp.110-143
• Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860 (1977) pp. 109-139
• Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law, 1870-1960: The Crisis of Legal Orthodoxy (1992) pp. 65-107
• Lobban, 'Corporate identity and limited liability in France and England 1825-67' (1996) 25 Anglo-American Law Review 397-440
• *Getzler and Macnair, ‘The Firm as an Entity before the Companies Acts’, in P. Brand, K. Costello and W.N. Osborough, eds., Adventures of the Law (2005) 267-88, available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=941231
• Getzler, ‘Company Law: English Common Law’ forthcoming in Katz, chief ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of Legal History, on request from author.

Essays

1. Why might entrepreneurs wish that the legal system recognize separate corporate personality for their business associations?
OR
2. Describe the development of the principle of limited liability in the history of English company law. Does this history suggest that limited liability had an unchanging meaning and function?

Seminar 5: Contract

Background

• Cornish and Clark, Law and Society in England 1750-1950 (1989), Part I
• Milsom, 'The Nature of Blackstone's Achievement' (1981) 1 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 1; also in Studies in the History of the Common Law (1985), ch 9
• Simpson, 'The Rise and Fall of the Legal Treatise: Legal Principles and the Forms of Legal Literature', in Legal Theory and Legal History: Essays on the Common Law (1987), 273-320
• Lieberman, The Province of Legislation Determined: Legal Theory in Eighteenth Century England (1989)
• Lobban, The Common Law and English Jurisprudence 1760-1850 (1991)

Sources

• Pillans v van Mierop (1765) 3 Burr. 1663 (Fifoot, History and Sources of the Common Law (1949), 427
• Rann v Hughes (1778) 4 Bro. PC 27, 7 TR 350n (Fifoot 428)
• Tweddle v Atkinson (1861) 1 B & S 393
• Adams v Lindsell (1818) 1 B & A 681
• Raffles v Wichelhaus (1864) 2 H & C 906
• Hadley v Baxendale (1854) 9 Ex 341

[See Smith and Thomas A Casebook on Contract, 11th ed, 2000 for a collation of many of these cases]

Texts

• Manchester, Modern Legal History of England and Wales 1750-1950 (1984) ch 13 § 2
• *Cornish and Clark, Law and Society in England 1750-1950 (1989) ch 3 Part I
• *Ibbetson, A Historical Introduction to the Law of Obligations (1999) chs. 12 & 13
• Manchester, Sources of English Legal History: Law, History, and Society in England and Wales, 1750-1950 (1984) 304-316
• *Atiyah, The Rise and Fall of Freedom of Contract (1979), chs. 3, 6-7, 13-16 and passim.
• *Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law (1977) ch 6
• Karsten, Heart Versus Head: Judge Made Law in Nineteenth Century America (1997)
• Gordley, The Philosophical Origins of Modern Contract Doctrine (1991)
• Simpson, 'The Horwitz Thesis and the History of Contracts', in Legal Theory and Legal History. Essays on the Common Law (1987) 203-72
• Simpson, 'Innovation in Nineteenth Century Contract Law', in Legal Theory and Legal History. Essays on the Common Law (1987) 171-202
• Simpson, Leading Cases in the Common Law (1997) chs 6 and 10
• Barton, 'Contractual damages and the rise of industry' 7 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 40
• Barton, 'The enforcement of hard bargains' (1987) 103 Law Quarterly Review 118
• Barton, 'Contract and quantum meruit: the antecedents of Cutter v. Powell (6 T.R. 320)' 8 Journal of Legal History 48
• Faust 'Hadley v. Baxendale (156 Eng. Rep. 145 (1854) - an understandable miscarriage of justice' (1994) 15 Journal of Legal History 41
• Hedley, 'From Individualism to Communitarianism' in Watkin ed., Legal Record and Historical Reality (1989)

Essay: "The period 1770-1870 saw the emergence of general principles of contract law closely associated with the development of the free market and the ideals of the political economists" (ATIYAH). Discuss.

Seminar 6: Tort: Accidents and liability for negligence

Sources

• Gibbon v Pepper (1695) (Baker & Milsom, Sources of English Legal History: Private Law to 1750 (1986) 335)
• Mitchell v Allestry (1676) B&M 572
• The Law Relating to Trials at Nisi Prius B&M 578
• Leame v Bray (1803) 3 East 593 (Fifoot, History and Sources of the Common Law (1949), 205
• Williams v Holland (1833) 10 Bing. 112 (Fifoot 209)
• Sharrod v LNWR (1849) 4 Ex. 580 (Fifoot 212)

Textbook Reading

• Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History (4th ed., 2002) ch 23
• Milsom, Historical Foundations of the Common Law (2nd. ed., London, 1981), 392-400
• Ibbetson, A Historical Introduction to the Law of Obligations (1999) chs. 8 & 9
• Manchester, Modern Legal History of England and Wales 1750-1950 (1984) ch 13 § 3
• Cornish and Clark, Law and Society in England 1750-1950 (1989), ch 7

Background Reading

• Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History (4th ed., 2002) pp. 421 'Further Reading' is the best place to start; then see:
• Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law (1977), 85-99
• White, Tort Law in America (NY, 1984) chs 1-3
• Gordon (1978) 94 Harvard Law Review 903
• Feinman (1980) 78 Michigan Law Review 722
• Witt, ‘Toward a New History of American Accident Law: Classical Tort Law and the Cooperative First-Party Insurance Movement’ (2001) 114 Harvard Law Review 690
• Simpson, Leading Cases in the Common Law (1997) ch 5
• Brenner, 'Nuisance Law and the Industrial Revolution' (1974) 3 Journal of Legal Studies 403
• McLaren, 'Nuisance Law and the Industrial Revolution — Some Lessons from Social History' (1983) 3 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 155
• Kostal, Law and English Railway Capitalism 1825-1875 (1994) ch. 7

Essay: "The triumph of negligence is a product of industrialization; it is a disguised subsidy to business". Discuss.

Seminar 7: Crime

Textbook survey

• Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History (4th ed., 2002) 500-536 (pre-modern background only)
• Manchester, Modern Legal History of England and Wales 1750-1950 (1984) chs 7-11
• *Cornish and Clark, Law and Society in England 1750-1950 (1989), ch 8

Monographs and journals

• Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England 1660-1800 (1986)
• Brewer and Styles, eds, An Ungovernable People: The English and their Law in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1980)
• Gatrell, The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People 1770-1868 (1994)
• *Hay, 'Property, Authority and the Criminal Law', in Hay, Linebaugh, Rule, Thompson, and Winslow, (eds), Albion's Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth Century England (1975) 17-63
• *Langbein, 'Albion's Fatal Flaws' (1983) 98 Past and Present 96-120
• Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (1991)
• King, Crime, Justice and Discretion in England, 1740-1820 (2000)
• *Thompson, Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black Act (1975) (conclusions/epilogue on the rule of law)
• Foucault, Discipline and Punish (1977, many succeeding editions)
• *Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain: The Penitentiary in the Industrial Revolution, 1750-1850 (1978)
• *Ignatieff, 'State, Civil Society and Total Institutions' (1981) Crime and Justice
• Gattrell, Lenman, Parker, eds, Crime and the Law: The Social History of Crime in Western Europe since 1500 (1980)
• Cohen and Scull, eds, Social Control and the State: Historical and Comparative Essays, chapters by Rock and Philips
• Zedner, Women, Crime, and Custody in Victorian England (1991)
• *Getzler, ‘Use of Force in Protecting Property’ (2005) 7 Theoretical Inquiries in Law 243

Essay: "The criminal law is simply the wrong place to look for the active hand of the ruling classes. From the standpoint of the rulers…the criminal justice system occupies a place not much more central than the garbage collection system. True, if the garbage is not collected the society cannot operate and ruling-class goals will be frustrated, but that does not turn garbage collection into a ruling-class conspiracy." [JH Langbein]. Discuss.

Seminar 8: Control of Government and the Rule of Law

• *Dicey, An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (10th ed., 1959) ch 4: 'The Rule of Law'
• Dicey, Lectures on the Relation Between Law and Public Opinion in England During the Nineteenth Century (1905; new ed. 1981, with *Introduction by Cosgrove)
• Dicey, 'The Development of Administrative Law in England' (1915) 31 Law Quarterly Review 148-53
• *Allison, A Continental Distinction in the Common Law: A Historical and Comparative Perspective on English Public Law (1996, rev ed 2000) chs 1, 2, 5, 7, 11
• *Jaffe and Henderson, 'Judicial Review and the Rule of Law: Historical Origins' (1956) 72 Law Quarterly Review 345-64
• Goldsworthy, The Sovereignty of Parliament: History and Philosophy (1999)
• McIlwain, The High Court of Parliament and its Supremacy (1910)
• *Maitland, 'The Crown as Corporation', in Collected Papers vol. 2 (1911) 244-70
• *Craig, 'Dicey: Unitary, Self-Correcting Democracy and Public Law', in Public Law and Democracy in the UK and the USA (1990) 12-55
• Simpson, 'The Ideal of the Rule of Law: Regina v Keyn (1876)' in Leading Cases in the Common Law (1997) 227-58
• *Keir, Constitutional History of Modern Britain 1485-1937 (1938) chs. 6-8
• *Arthurs, 'Without the Law': Administrative Justice and Legal Pluralism in Nineteenth Century England (1985)
• *Bagehot, The English Constitution (1963)
• Cosgrove, The Rule of Law: A.V. Dicey, Victorian Jurist (1980)
• Jennings, The Law and the Constitution (1933; 5th ed., 1959)
• MacDonagh, 'The Nineteenth Century Revolution in Government: A Reappraisal' (1958) 1,1 Historical Journal 52
• Parris, 'The Nineteenth Century Revolution in Government: A Reappraisal Reappraised' (1960) 3 Historical Journal 17
• Parris, Constitutional Bureaucracy: The Development of British Central Administration since the Eighteenth Century (1969)

Essay: Why did Dicey specify the rule of law concept as he did, when he did?

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