Le Court Leete, Et Court Baron, Collect per Iohn Kitchin de Graies..

1592. An Important Contribution to the Development of Modern Legal Theory Kitchin, John [c.1520-c.1590]. Le Court Leete & Court Baron Collect per Iohn Kitchin de Graies Inne un Apprentice en Ley. Et les Cases & Matters Necessarie pur Seneschals de Ceux Courts a Scier, & Pur les Students de les Measons de Chauncerie. Ore Novelment Imprimee, & Per le Author Mesme Corrige, Ovesq[ue] Divers Novel Additions, Come Court de Marshalsey, Auncient Demesne, Court de Pipowders, Essoines, Imparlance, View, Actions, Contracts, Pleadings, Maintenance, & Divers Auter Matters. [London]: In Aedibus Richardi Totelli, 1592. [xii], 1-254; [255]-289, [3] ff. Two parts, each with title page, that of the second has title beginning Retorna Brevium Novelment Corrigee. Octavo (6-1/4" x 3-3/4"). Contemporary sheep, blind rules and large arabesques to boards, skillfully rebacked and recornered with raised bands, blind fillets and blind frames to spine, hinges mended. Light rubbing and a few small scuffs, nicks and stains to boards, moderate rubbing to board edges, corners bumped, front hinge cracked (before title page), recent pencil annotations and early ownership signatures (of Richard Norwood and [illegible] Prinne) to front free endpaper. Moderate toning to interior, slightly heavier in places, faint dampstaining to margins in several places, small wormhole to ff. 23-41 with very minor loss to text and none to legibility, light foxing to a few leaves, brief early annotation to f. 29. An appealing copy. $1,100. * Later edition. By outlining the differences between the previously undivided court, Kitchin, along with Coke, helped lay the foundations of modern legal theory. "In fact Kitchin was doing on a small scale what Coke was doing on a grand scale. Both were representatives of that school of literate Elizabethan lawyers...whose great and enduring work was the adaptation of medieval law and institutions to modern needs. Imagination necessarily played some part in this process of adaptation; and thus they are responsible not only for the enunciation of the rules of modern law, but also for legal and historical theories, the soundness of which was considered by many generations of lawyers and historians to be as incontestable as their statements of law" (Holdsworth). The first edition of this work was published in 1579. Our edition also.