Common Law: English Common Law, Past & Future

choi

Barton Swain, Flag of Our Fathers; The US and Britain together midwifed political freedom into the modern world. Wall Street Journal, Nov 29, 2013
online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303789604579200063693919116
(book review on Daniel Hannan, Inventing Freedom; How the English-speaking peoples made the modern world. Broadside Books, 2013)

Quote:

"The principles of representative democracy, individual liberty and property rights aren't the products of some general European phenomenon called 'capitalism,' he [Hannan] says, and any belief that they are owes more to Karl Marx than to the historical record. These principles originated in pre-Norman England, were realized fully in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and spread as English speakers left the British Isles to colonize the New World, India, East Asia and Australia.

"Mr Hannan believes that Continental Europeans have never valued representative government and personal liberty in the way the English have for more than a millennium. * * * He contends, rather, that by a combination of historical development and geographical accident, the people of what is now called Great Britain created something entirely different from the closed and centralized regimes that have been the norm in most of human history. They produced a society where rulers were subject to the law and the law belonged to the people, where collective will did not trump individual right, and where free citizens were permitted to create and keep their own wealth.

"Long before the 16th century [when capitalism rose], English law had considered boys free agents the moment they reached legal maturity. Once he left home, a young Englishman could join whatever trade he wished. English law, too, allowed a man to leave his property to whomever he pleased, whereas Continental laws required a more equitable distribution to all family members—a difference that still exists. Long before the rise of industrialism in the 18th century, then, English society reflected a view of individual rights and economic mobility that was largely absent on the Continent.

Note:
(a) Flags of Our Fathers (film)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_Our_Fathers_(film)
(2006; directed by Clint Eastwood)
(b) "That the book contains no bibliography or proper citations is irritating, but the decision to give it a tract-like feel is defensible."

tract (n; from Medieval Latin tractus):
"a pamphlet or leaflet of political or religious propaganda"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tract

(c)
(i) The book under review gives a wonderful account of origin of common law, in this review startinf at "The story begins in the 10th century, when the Saxons were living in an England that, in a primitive but no less real way, valued law over force. These were litigious people * * *"
(ii) On Nov 23, 2013, I published the posting Anglosphere, based on another WSJ review on the same book.
www.yilubbs.com/thread-100326-1-1.html

This review, however, emphasizes the origin and evolution of common law.

(d) "In 1013, a Danish invasion had driven the Saxon king Aethelred into exile [in Normandy] and placed a Dane, Sweyn, on the throne. When Sweyn died unexpectedly the next year, the Saxon ruling assembly, the Witan, invited Aethelred to return—on condition that he refrain from imposing excessive taxes and heed the Witan's counsel. And when Aethelred died two years later, the same offer was extended to the Danish king Cnut."
(i) Æthelred
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelred
(an Old English personal name (a compound of æþel and ræd, meaning "noble counsel" or "well-advised") and may refer to "Æthelred the Unready (978–1016), King of England")
(ii) Æthelred the Unready
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelred_the_Unready
(c 968-1016; king of England 978-1013 and 1014-1016; section 3.5 Invasion of 1013)
(iii) For king Sweyn, see Swain (surname)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swain_(surname)
(an English surname derived from the Old Norse personal name Sveinn (Sven, Sweyn), meaning a youth or young man)
(iv) Sweyn was father of Cnut the Great.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut_the_Great
(c 985 or 995 – 1035; more commonly known as Canute)
(v) Vikings
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings
(section 1 Etymology; The period from the earliest recorded raids in the 790s until the Norman conquest of England in 1066 is commonly known as the Viking Age of Scandinavian history)
(vi) For Witan, see Witenagemot
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witenagemot
(Old English: "meeting of wise men;"  a political institution in Anglo-Saxon England which operated from before the 7th century until the 11th century)

(e) England's 1689 Bill of Rights maintained that "excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

That is the forerunner of the Eighth Amendment to US Constitution.

(f) "'The Grand Union Flag was the banner that the Continental Congress met under,' Mr Hannan writes, 'the banner that flew over their chamber when they approved the Declaration of Independence. It was the banner that George Washington fought beneath, that John Paul Jones hoisted on the first ship of the United States Navy. That it has been almost excised from America's collective memory tells us a great deal about how the story of the revolution was afterward edited.'"
(i) Grand Union Flag
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Union_Flag
(This flag consisted of thirteen red and white stripes with the British Union Flag of the time (the variant prior to the inclusion of the St Patrick's cross of Ireland) in the canton)
(ii) Saint Patrick's Saltire
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Saltire
(After the 1800 Act of Union joined the Kingdom of Ireland with the Kingdom of Great Britain, the saltire was added to the British flag to form the Union Flag still used by the United Kingdom)