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108 Law Libr. J. 305 (2016)
Sir Edward Coke and the Reformation of the Laws: Religion, Politics and Jurisprudence, 1578-1616

handle is hein.journals/llj108 and id is 299 raw text is: 
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Smith, David  Chan. Sir Edward  Coke and the Reformation of the Laws: Religion,
    Politics and Jurisprudence, 1578-1616. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
    2014. 299p. $110.
                           Reviewed by Joel Fishman*
    $[97 Edward Coke (1552-1634) was an important figure in English legal history.
He served first as a barrister, then as speaker of the House of Commons, attorney
general for Queen Elizabeth I, chief judge of King James I's Courts of Common
Pleas (1606-1613) and the King's Bench (1613-1616), and later as an opponent of
King Charles I in the Parliaments of 1626 and 1628. Coke's authorship of twelve
volumes  of Reports and his four volumes of the Institutes of the Laws of England
created landmark publications to his contemporaries and later users.
    9198 In the introduction, David Chan Smith takes issue with many historians'
views of Coke's position, arguing that Coke was preoccupied with the abuse of
legal power by private individuals (p.7), and reframes [his] early career and juris-
prudence  within contexts outside of the traditional battle between liberty and
prerogative (p.13). Smith follows Coke's career through the four decades of the
1580s to 1610s as litigation increased in the common law courts. Smith argues that
Coke's role as attorney general was an important development   in securing law
reform and safeguarding priorities of the Elizabethan war-state. Coke strengthened
the interpretation of the treason law that supported a strong monarch and royal
authority. Later, as judge, he showed his concern for the delegation of royal author-
ity to the commission of the sewers involving the use of drainage and eminent
domain  in the Fens in 1609. Coke's Reports were a reaction to poor court reporting
and a method  to provide a framework of rules and principles to restrain his fellow
lawyers (p.57).
    199 Seventeenth-century historiography concentrated on legal history of the
common   law and the ecclesiastical history of the English church's battle against the
Roman   Catholic papacy. Coke's history was a defense of the common law and its
relationship to the monarch. Coke viewed William I's role in the Norman Conquest
as carrying over Anglo-Saxon laws and introducing new laws. Coke identified with
the statutory law that the English kings helped to develop. In addition, Coke
attempted  to counter popish arguments  against the Elizabethan religious settle-
ment. English writers tried to distinguish between spiritual and temporal jurisdic-
tion, church jurisprudence, and resistance.


    *  @ Joel Fishman, 2016. Assistant Director for Lawyer Services, Duquesne University Center for
Legal Information and Allegheny County Law Library, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.


Vol.1io8:2 [2016-131


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