{"product_id":"priests-of-the-law-thomas-j-mcsweeney-9780198845454","title":"Priests of the Law: Roman Law and the Making of the Common Law's First Professionals","description":"\u003cem\u003ePriests of the Law\u003c\/em\u003e tells the story of the first people in the history of the common law to think of themselves as legal professionals. In the middle decades of the thirteenth century, a group of justices working in the English royal courts spent a great deal of time thinking and writing about what it meant to be a person who worked in the law courts. This book examines the justices who wrote the treatise known as \u003cem\u003eBracton\u003c\/em\u003e. Written and re-written between the 1220s and the 1260s, \u003cem\u003eBracton\u003c\/em\u003e is considered one of the great treatises of the early common law and is still occasionally cited by judges and lawyers when they want to make the case that a particular rule goes back to the beginning of the common law. This book looks to \u003cem\u003eBracton\u003c\/em\u003e less for what it can tell us about the law of the thirteenth century, however, than for what it can tell us about the judges who wrote it. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe judges who wrote \u003cem\u003eBracton\u003c\/em\u003e - Martin of Pattishall, William of Raleigh, and Henry of Bratton - were some of the first people to work full-time in England's royal courts, at a time when there was no recourse to an obvious model for the legal professional. They found one in an unexpected place: they sought to clothe themselves in the authority and prestige of the scholarly Roman-law tradition that was sweeping across Europe in the thirteenth century, modelling themselves on the jurists of Roman law who were teaching in European universities. In \u003cem\u003eBracton\u003c\/em\u003e and other texts they produced, the justices of the royal courts worked hard to ensure that the nascent common-law tradition grew from Roman Law. Through their writing, this small group of people, working in the courts of an island realm, imagined themselves to be part of a broader European legal culture. They made the case that they were not merely servants of the king: they were priests of the law.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Thomas J. McSweeney\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0198845456\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780198845454\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Oxford University Press, USA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/14\/2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 304\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.40lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.40h x 6.50w x 1.10d","brand":"Thomas J. McSweeney","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":43994387742975,"sku":"9780198845454","price":115.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_c3a36667-8a1e-4255-8c15-a948c2ea39f2.jpg?v=1683329848","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/priests-of-the-law-thomas-j-mcsweeney-9780198845454","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}