The Age of Sir Edward Coke

Abstract

The Renaissance saw a transformation in the legal environment in England (see Baker 1986b). To begin with, English society became more litigious than it had ever been. The sixteenth century saw a tenfold rise in the volume of civil litigation, which resulted in part from social and economic expansion. At the same time, there was a significant expansion in the number of lawyers, both of barristers and attorneys (Brooks 1986, 51 and 113; Brooks 1998a; Muldrew 1998; Prest 1986, 7). Moreover, in the age of humanism, law had a new cultural role. It was increasingly perceived that the work of the barrister was officium ingenii, to be contrasted with the mechanical officium laboris of the attorney. The Inns of Court were seen not merely as venues for training lawyers, but as finishing schools for gentlemen. In The Book Named Governor (1531), Sir Thomas Elyot (ca. 1490–1546) advised that if young men were set to study philosophy and “the laws of this realm,” they would become the most “noble councellors” in any realm (Elyot 1962, 52–3; cf. Terrill 1981, 31). At the same time, the era from the later fifteenth century saw major developments in substantive law, with the development of new remedies for breaches of contract, and significant changes in land law (Simpson 1975; Ibbetson 1999; Simpson 1986).