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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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common law
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The body of English law which has been built up in the centuries since the Norman Conquest by the custom and practice of judges dealing with specific cases (it is also known as case law), as opposed to statute law established by act of parliament. Inevitably the body of material became impossibly unwieldy, and an important part has been played by jurists selecting and annotating the most significant judgements.
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A formative span of British history, from the *Tudors to the *Hanoverians, produced three outstanding commentators of this kind: Edward *Coke, whose Institutes of the Laws of England appeared in 1628; Matthew Hale (1609–76), whose (History of the Pleas of the Crown (1685) and History of the Common Law of England (1713) were published after his death; and William Blackstone (1723–80), author of the famous Commentaries based on his lectures at Oxford (Commentaries on the Laws of England 1765–9).
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