Book Description

Selden, John. Tracts Written by John Selden of the Inner-Temple, Esquire. The first Entituled, Jani Anglorum Facies Altera, rendred into English, with large Notes thereupon, by Redman Westcot, Gent. The Second, England's Epinomis. The Third, Of the Original of Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions of Testaments. The Fourth, Of the Disposition or Administration of Intestates Goods. The Three last never before Extant. London: Printed for Thomas Basset at the George in Fleet-Street, and Richard Chiswell, 1683. [xxxiii], 131; [7], 39; [4], 24 pp. With a new introduction by Stephen M. Sheppard. Reprint available August 2004 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-408-8. Cloth. $195. * Reprint of first edition. In three parts; each part has separate title page; the last two tracts form the third part. Included are four works: The Reverse or Back-Face of the English Janus. To-wit, all that is met with in story concerning the Common and Statute-Law of English Britanny, from the first memoirs of the two nations to the decease of Henry II...Written in Latin...; England's Epinomis; Two Treatises Written by John Selden...The First, Of the Original of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of testaments: The Second, Of the Disposition or Administration of Intestates Goods. The first tract Jani Anglorum... (The Reverse or Back-Face of the English Janus) begins John Selden's [1584-1654] study of the sources of English common law and the English constitution. This is carried through to the Magna Carta in the second tract, England's Epinomis. Holdsworth regards Selden "as the first scientific historian of English law" and goes on to state: "...his great intellectual qualities justify us in regarding him both as the pioneer of the select band of English legal historians, and one of the most eminent of its representatives." Holdsworth, The Historians of Anglo-American Law 50-51. Marke, A Catalogue of the Law Collection at New York University (1953) 146. Sweet & Maxwell, A Legal Bibliography of the British Commonwealth of Nations I:42(33). Catalogue of the Library of the Law School of Harvard University (1909) II:557.