Esteemed Bookes of Lawe and the Legal Culture of Early Virginia

Before the establishment of modern law schools in the nineteenth century, people prepared for a career at the bar by “reading law.” No group of Virginians or early Americans was as dependent on books as lawyers and judges, with perhaps the exception of the clergy. Virginia men of law constituted one of the first learned professions in colonial America. Virginians owned treaties, practical manuals, and compilations of case reports that informed them about the details and principles of English statute and common law. From the beginning, members of the General Assembly relied on books when they legislated for their new colony. Ten essays explore aspects of the law and intellectual culture of Virginia from the seventeenth century to the early years of the nineteenth century by looking at legal bibliography very broadly defined. This book had its origins in conversations among people with similar interests in legal history and bibliography. Annotation ©2017 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

Warren M. Billings, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of New Orleans, is author of Magistrates and Pioneers: Essays in the History of American Law. Brent Tarter is author of A Saga of the New South: Race, Law, and Public Debt in Virginia and Daydreams and Nightmares: A Virginia Family Faces Secession and War (both Virginia).