First published in 1987, The Professions in Early Modern England highlights the significant role of professional and quasi-professional occupations in English society before the industrial revolution, contrary to what was once historiographical and sociological orthodoxy. The editorial introduction provides an overview of the history of the professions as a distinct field of scholarly investigation, suggesting that neither historians nor social theorists have adequately mapped or explained the rise of the professions to their present place in modern societies. The following chapters bring together original contributions by researchers who have made a close study of various occupational groups over the period c. 1500-1750. Besides the traditional learned professions and their practitioners in the church, medicine and the law, they survey occupations generally lacking institutional coherence: school teachers, estate stewards and those following the profession of arms. This book remains of interest to students of history, literature and sociology.

First published in 1981, Lawyers in Early Modern Europe and America aims to present a convenient conspectus on the legal professions in early modern Europe, Scotland, France Spain and Colonial America, and to provide a comparative perspective on the place of the legal profession in Western societies before the Industrial Revolution. The main themes covered by each contributor are: the status, number and vocational functions of the different classes or groups or lawyers; their social origins; education and career patterns; relations between lawyers and clients, other occupations and status-groups and the state; the extent of legal ‘professionalisation’ and the role of lawyers as ‘modernisers’ in cultural, economic, political and social terms. This book will be of interest to students of history, law and political science.

Among the most celebrated works in the Anglo-American legal tradition, William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-9) is currently attracting renewed scholarly interest. Whilst the Commentaries no longer dominate legal education, they continue to be regularly cited in superior courts throughout the common law world, besides providing a remarkably comprehensive account of public and private law in England on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. The life and character of Blackstone himself, the nature and sources of his jurisprudence and the impact of his great book are the main themes of the collection. Individual essays treat Blackstone's early architectural treatises and their relationship to the Commentaries; his idiosyncratic bibliophilia; his views of the role of judges, interpretation of statutes, the law of marriage, natural law, property law and the legalities of colonisation. Together with the dissemination and the reception of the Commentaries, Blackstone's bibliography and iconography also receive attention. Combining the work of both eminent and emerging scholars, this interdisciplinary venture sheds welcome new light on a legal classic and its continued influence.

William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69) is perhaps the most elegant and influential legal text in the history of the common law. By one estimate, Blackstone has been cited well over 10,000 times in American judicial opinions alone. Prominent in recent reassessment of Blackstone and his works, Wilfrid Prest also convened the Adelaide symposia which have now generated two collections of essays: Blackstone and his Commentaries: Biography, Law, History (2009), and Re-Interpreting Blackstone's Commentaries: A Seminal Text in National and International Contexts (2014). This third collection focuses on Blackstone's critics and detractors. Leading scholars examine the initial reception of the Commentaries in the context of debates over law, religion and politics in eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland. Having shown Blackstone's volumes to be a contested work of the Enlightenment, the remaining chapters assess critical responses to Blackstone on family law, the status of women and legal education in Britain and America. While Blackstone and his Commentaries have been widely lauded and memorialised in marble, this volume highlights the extent to which they have also attracted censure, controversy and disparagement.

This collection explores the remarkable impact and continuing influence of William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, from the work's original publication in the 1760s down to the present. Contributions by cultural and literary scholars, and intellectual and legal historians trace the manner in which this truly seminal text has established its authority well beyond the author's native shores or his own limited lifespan. In the first section, 'Words and Visions', Kathryn Temple, Simon Stern, Cristina S Martinez and Michael Meehan discuss the Commentaries' aesthetic and literary qualities as factors contributing to the work's unique status in Anglo-American legal culture. The second group of essays traces the nature and dimensions of Blackstone's impact in various jurisdictions outside England, namely Quebec (Michel Morin), Louisiana and the United States more generally (John W Cairns and Stephen M Sheppard), North Carolina (John V Orth) and Australasia (Wilfrid Prest). Finally Horst Dippel, Paul Halliday and Ruth Paley examine aspects of Blackstone's influential constitutional and political ideas, while Jessie Allen concludes the volume with a personal account of 'Reading Blackstone in the Twenty-First Century and the Twenty-First Century through Blackstone'. This volume is a sequel to the well-received collection Blackstone and his Commentaries: Biography, Law, History (Hart Publishing, 2009).

One of the most celebrated works in the Anglo-American legal tradition, William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-9) has recently begun to attract renewed interest from legal and other scholars. The Commentaries no longer dominate legal education as they once did, especially in North America during the century after their first publication. But they continue to be regularly cited in the judgments of superior courts of review on both sides of the Atlantic, and elsewhere throughout the common-law world. They also provide constitutional, cultural, intellectual and legal historians with a remarkably comprehensive account of the role of law, lawyers and the courts in the imperial superpower that was England on the cusp of the industrial revolution. The life and character of Blackstone himself, the nature and sources of his jurisprudence as expounded in the Commentaries, and the impact of his great book, both within and beyond his native shores, are the main themes of this collection. Individual essays treat Blackstone's early architectural treatises and their relationship to the Commentaries; his idiosyncratic book collecting; his views of the role of judges, interpretation of statutes, the law of marriage, the status of wives, natural law, property law and the legalities of colonisation, and the varied reception of the Commentaries in America and continental Europe. Blackstone's bibliography and iconography also receive attention. Combining the work of both eminent and emerging scholars, this interdisciplinary venture sheds welcome new light on a legal classic and its continued influence. I Life 1 Blackstone and Biography - Wilfrid Prest 2 A 'Model of the Old House': Architecture in Blackstone's Life and Commentaries - Carol Matthews 3 'A Mighty Consumption of Ale': Blackstone, Buckler, and All Souls College, Oxford - Norma Aubertin-Potter 4 William Blackstone and William Prynne: an Unlikely Association? - Ian Doolittle II Thought 5 Blackstone on Judging - John H Langbein 6 Blackstone's Rules for the Construction of Statutes - John V Orth 7 Blackstone and Bentham on the Law of Marriage - Mary Sokol 8 Coverture and Unity of Person in Blackstone's Commentaries -Tim Stretton 9 Blackstone's Commentaries on Colonialism: Australian Judicial Interpretations - Thalia Anthony 10 Restoring the 'Real' to Real Property Law: A Return to Blackstone? - Nicole Graham III Influence 11 American Blackstones - Michael Hoeflich 12 Did Blackstone get the Gallic Shrug? - John Emerson 13 Blackstone in Germany - Horst Dippel IV Sources 14 Bibliography - Morris Cohen 15 Iconography - J H Baker and Wilfrid Prest Contributors -Thalia Anthony lectures in law at the University of Sydney. -Norma Aubertin-Potter is Librarian-in-Charge of the Codrington Library, All Souls College, Oxford. -J H Baker, Downing Professor of the Laws of England at the University of Cambridge, is Literary Director of the Selden Society. -Morris Cohen, Professor Emeritus and Professorial Lecturer in Law, is the former Librarian of Yale Law School. -Horst Dippel is Professor of British and American Studies at the University of Kassel. -Ian Doolittle, formerly a Junior Research Fellow at Christ Church, Oxford, is a partner in the law firm Trowers and Hamlins LLP in London. -John Emerson holds a Visiting Research Fellowship in the Law School, University of Adelaide. -Nicole Graham is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, University of Technology, Sydney. -Michael Hoeflich is John H and John M Kane Distinguished Professor in the Law School, University of Kansas. -John Langbein is Sterling Professor of Law and Legal History at Yale Law School. -Carol Matthews teaches in the School of History and Politics at the University of Adelaide. -John V Orth holds the William Rand Kenan Jr Chair of Law at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. -Wilfrid Prest is Professor Emeritus and Visiting Research Fellow in the Law School and School of History and Politics, University of Adelaide. -Mary Sokol holds an Honorary Research Fellowship in the Bentham Project at University College London. -Tim Stretton teaches history at St Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69) is perhaps the most elegant and influential legal text in the history of the common law. By one estimate, Blackstone has been cited well over 10,000 times in American judicial opinions alone. Prominent in recent reassessment of Blackstone and his works, Wilfrid Prest also convened the Adelaide symposia which have now generated two collections of essays: Blackstone and his Commentaries: Biography, Law, History (2009), and Re-Interpreting Blackstone's Commentaries: A Seminal Text in National and International Contexts (2014). This third collection focuses on Blackstone's critics and detractors. Leading scholars examine the initial reception of the Commentaries in the context of debates over law, religion and politics in eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland. Having shown Blackstone's volumes to be a contested work of the Enlightenment, the remaining chapters assess critical responses to Blackstone on family law, the status of women and legal education in Britain and America. While Blackstone and his Commentaries have been widely lauded and memorialised in marble, this volume highlights the extent to which they have also attracted censure, controversy and disparagement.

This collection explores the remarkable impact and continuing influence of William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, from the work's original publication in the 1760s down to the present. Contributions by cultural and literary scholars, and intellectual and legal historians trace the manner in which this truly seminal text has established its authority well beyond the author's native shores or his own limited lifespan. In the first section, 'Words and Visions', Kathryn Temple, Simon Stern, Cristina S Martinez and Michael Meehan discuss the Commentaries' aesthetic and literary qualities as factors contributing to the work's unique status in Anglo-American legal culture. The second group of essays traces the nature and dimensions of Blackstone's impact in various jurisdictions outside England, namely Quebec (Michel Morin), Louisiana and the United States more generally (John W Cairns and Stephen M Sheppard), North Carolina (John V Orth) and Australasia (Wilfrid Prest). Finally Horst Dippel, Paul Halliday and Ruth Paley examine aspects of Blackstone's influential constitutional and political ideas, while Jessie Allen concludes the volume with a personal account of 'Reading Blackstone in the Twenty-First Century and the Twenty-First Century through Blackstone'. This volume is a sequel to the well-received collection Blackstone and his Commentaries: Biography, Law, History (Hart Publishing, 2009).

Between the restoration of Charles II and the battle of Waterloo, England gradually emerged as the core nation of the most formidable superpower the world had yet seen. This lively, up-to-date, and comprehensive overview explores the cultural, social, and economic motivations of the people behind a remarkable transformation, in which England lost her American colonies but gained an Empire. It will become a standard text on the 'long eighteenth century'.