2019-01-01

Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set

Googling, as folk are wont to do, the humble phrase "For out of olde feldes, as men seyth" I stumbled across Faithful Magistrates and Republican Lawyers: Creators of Virginia's Legal Culture, 1680-18102 and my heart beat faster - yes really it did - for I had found the elusive connection between the Common Law of Olde Englande and Chaucer, and it is Coke. From Institutes of the Lawes of England (Widely recognized as a foundational document of the common law, they have been cited in over 70 cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States), probably volume four, we find: Let us now peruse our ancient authors, for out of the old fields must come the new corne. Which runs on, via some obscure connections I've now lost track of1, to the Rule in Shelley's Case, which you don't want to know about. Even better, from the title page I find Proverbs 22 28Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.

Notes


1. One is a file on the history of the law of due process, which only belatedly do I notice is from electjudgeduggan.wordpress.com, who (Ballotopedia tells me) was a candidate for Supreme Court 3rd Judicial District in 2013. But he got stoated, receiving only 5% of the vote, despite his fine scholarship.

2. Or perhaps more usefully, William Fitzhugh.

1 comment:

CapitalistImperialistPig said...

The naked aristocrat revealed.