Читать книгу A Concise History of the Common Law - Theodore F. T. Plucknett - Страница 20

After the dramatic murder of Becket the interest turns to the rapid development of the administration under Henry II’s officials. The Treasury was under Nigel, Bishop of Ely (a nephew of Henry I’s Justiciar, Roger, Bishop of Salisbury), who further elaborated its constitution and procedure. Finally, having bought the office of Treasurer he conferred it upon his son, Richard fitz Nigel, Bishop of London, who wrote an extremely detailed account of the working of the Exchequer called the Dialogue of the Exchequer (1177-1179).³

The last ten years of the reign are dominated by Ranulf de Glanvill, the Justiciar. A competent general, diplomatist and judge, although an unscrupulous sheriff (he was twice removed from office), his name was attached to the first treatise upon the common law. The date is soon after 1187 and Glanvill’s nephew, Hubert Walter, has been suggested as possibly its author. It is a short, simple book, for the common law was neither very extensive nor very complicated. But for all that, it set the style of legal literature for many centuries to come, for the author of Glanvill invented the method of writing law in the form of a commentary upon the different writs.¹