LITTLETON, SIR THOMAS

Littleton's Tenures, in French and English. London, 1671.

      Littleton, Sir Thomas [d. 1481]. Littleton's Tenures, In French and English. With an Alphabetical Table of the Principal Matters Therein Contained. London: Printed by John Streater, James Flesher and Henry Twyford, Assigns of Richard Atkins, and Edward Atkins, 1671. [xxii], 436 (i.e. 426), [2] pp. Main text in parallel columns. 12mo. (3" x 5-1/4"). Contemporary sheep, blind rules to boards and spine. Light rubbing to extremities, small chip to head of spine, rear joint just starting at head, front hinge cracked but secure, rear pastedown loose and worn around the edges. Clean tear to fore edges of a few leaves with no loss to text. Offsetting to margins of endleaves, toning to a few text leaves, interior otherwise fresh. Ex-private library. Armorial bookplate of the library of the Earls of Macclesfield to front pastedown, the library's small embossed stamp to title page, small shelf labels to spine. A lovely unsophisticated copy. $2,000. * First edition with parallel texts in English and Law French. Written during the reign of Edward IV [1442-1483] and first published around 1481, Littleton's Tenures is probably the most revered treatise in the history of the common law. Much admired for its learning and style, it is concerned with tenures and other issues relating to real property. This venerable work, which Coke called "the ornament of the Common Law, and the most perfect and absolute work that ever was written in any humane science," is considered a landmark because it renounced the principles of Roman law (and Latin) in favor of guidelines and doctrines drawn from the Year Books and, when necessary, hypothetical cases. Holdsworth, A History of English Law II:573. Sweet & Maxwell, A Legal Bibliography of the British Commonwealth 1:458 (119).