The ''Commentaries on the Laws of England'' are an influential 18th-century treatise on the

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipres ...

of England by Sir

William Blackstone Sir William Blackstone (10 July 1723 – 14 February 1780) was an English jurist, judge and Tory politician of the eighteenth century. He is most noted for writing the ''Commentaries on the Laws of England''. Born into a middle-class family ...

, originally published by the

Clarendon Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, 1765–1770. The work is divided into four volumes, on the rights of persons, the rights of things, of private wrongs and of public wrongs. The ''Commentaries'' were long regarded as the leading work on the development of English law and played a role in the development of the American legal system. They were in fact the first methodical treatise on the common law suitable for a lay readership since at least the Middle Ages. The common law of England has relied on

precedent A precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems place great valu ...

more than statute and codifications and has been far less amenable than the civil law, developed from the

Roman law Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the '' Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Ju ...

, to the needs of a treatise. The ''Commentaries'' were influential largely because they were in fact readable, and because they met a need. The ''Commentaries'' are often quoted as the definitive pre- Revolutionary source of common law by United States courts.

Opinions An opinion is a judgment, viewpoint, or statement that is not conclusive, rather than facts, which are true statements. Definition A given opinion may deal with subjective matters in which there is no conclusive finding, or it may deal with ...

of the Supreme Court of the United States quote from Blackstone's work whenever they wish to engage in historical discussion that goes back that far, or farther (for example, when discussing the intent of the

Framers The Constitutional Convention took place in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Although the convention was intended to revise the league of states and first system of government under the Articles of Confederation, the intention fr ...

of the Constitution). The book was famously used as the key in Benedict Arnold's

book cipher A book cipher, or Ottendorf cipher, is a cipher in which the key is some aspect of a book or other piece of text. Books, being common and widely available in modern times, are more convenient for this use than objects made specifically for crypto ...

, which he used to communicate secretly with his conspirator John André during their plot to betray the Continental Army during the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

The Rights of Persons

The Rights of Persons is the first volume in the four part series that is the Commentaries. Divided into 18 chapters, it is largely concerned with the rights of individuals; the rights of

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

; the rights and title of the

King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

; the royal family; the councils belonging to the King; kingly duties; the

royal prerogative The royal prerogative is a body of customary authority, privilege and immunity, recognized in common law and, sometimes, in civil law jurisdictions possessing a monarchy, as belonging to the sovereign and which have become widely vested in th ...

; the King's revenue; subordinate magistrates; the people (aliens, denizens, and natives); the rights of the clergy; the civil state; the military and maritime states; the relationship between master and servant (in modern-day terminology, employer and employee), husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

; and finally corporates.

The Rights of Things

The Rights of Things, Blackstone's longest volume, deals with

property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...

. The vast majority of the text is devoted to real property, this being the most valuable sort in the feudal law upon which the English law of land was founded. Property in chattels was already beginning to overshadow property in land, but its law lacked the complex feudal background of the common law of land, and was not dealt with nearly as extensively by Blackstone.

Of Private Wrongs

Of Private Wrongs dealt with

tort A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable ...

s as they existed in Blackstone's time. The various methods of

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal ...

that existed at civil law were also dealt with in this volume, as were the jurisdictions of the several courts, from the lowest to the highest. Almost as an afterthought, Blackstone also adds a brief chapter on equity, the parallel legal system that existed in English law at the time, seeking to address wrongs that the common law did not handle.

Of Public Wrongs

Of Public Wrongs is Blackstone's treatise on criminal law. Here, Blackstone the apologist takes centre stage; he seeks to explain how the criminal laws of England were just and merciful, despite becoming later known as the Bloody Code for their severity. He does however accept that "It is a melancholy truth, that among the variety of actions which men are daily liable to commit, no less than an hundred and sixty have been declared by Act of Parliament to be felonious without

benefit of clergy In English law, the benefit of clergy (Law Latin: ''privilegium clericale'') was originally a provision by which clergymen accused of a crime could claim that they were outside the jurisdiction of the secular courts and be tried instead in an ec ...

; or, in other words, to be worthy of instant death". Blackstone frequently resorted to assuring his reader that the laws as written were not always enforced, and that the King's power of pardon could be exercised to correct any hardships or injustices.

Legacy

Blackstone for the first time made the

readable and understandable by non-lawyers. At first, his ''Commentaries'' were hotly contested, some seeing in them an evil or covert attempt to reduce or codify the common law which was anathema to common law purists. For decades, a study of the ''Commentaries'' was required reading for all first year law students. Lord Avonmore said of Blackstone: "He it was who first gave to the law the air of a science. He found it a skeleton and clothed it with life, colour and complexion. He embraced the cold statue and by his touch, it grew into youth, health and beauty."

Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._4_February_1747.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 4 February 1747">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.htm ...

, who had been a critic of the ''Commentaries'' when they were first published, credits Blackstone with having: "... taught jurisprudence to speak the language of the scholar and the gentleman; put a polish upon that rugged science, cleansed her from the dust and cobwebs of the office and, if he has not enriched her with that precision which is drawn only from the sterling treasury of the sciences, has decked her out to advantage from the

toilet A toilet is a piece of sanitary hardware that collects human urine and feces, and sometimes toilet paper, usually for disposal. Flush toilets use water, while dry or non-flush toilets do not. They can be designed for a sitting position popu ...

of classical erudition, enlivened her with metaphors and allusions and sent her abroad in some measure to instruct." While there is much valuable historical information in the ''Commentaries'', later historians have tended to be somewhat critical of the uses Blackstone made of

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

. the easy and contradictory assurance that England's current political settlement represented the optimal state of rational and just government, while claiming simultaneously that this optimal state was an ideal that had always existed in the past, despite the many struggles in England's history between overreaching kings and wayward parliaments. But Blackstone's chief contribution was to create a succinct, readable, and above all ''handy'' epitome of the common law tradition. While ''useful'' in England, Blackstone's text answered an urgent need in the developing United States and Canada. In the United States, the common law tradition was being spread into frontier areas, but it was not feasible for lawyers and judges to carry around the large libraries that contained the common law

s. The four volumes of Blackstone put the gist of that tradition in portable form. They were required reading for most lawyers in the Colonies, and for many, they were the only reading. Two decades after their publication, Blackstone's ''Commentaries'' were the focus of a mocking polemic by

, called ''Fragment on Government''. This dissection of Blackstone's first book made Bentham's name notorious, though it was originally published anonymously. In 1841–45

Henry John Stephen Henry John Stephen (1787–1864) was an English legal writer and serjeant-at-law. Life Born on St Kitts in the West Indies on 18 January 1787, he was the second son of James Stephen (1758–1832); James Stephen (1789–1859) and George Stephen ...

published ''New Commentaries on the Laws of England (Partly Founded on Blackstone)'', whose structure was modelled on Blackstone's work and which liberally quoted from it; much of Blackstone's text remained as late as 1914 in the 16th edition of ''Stephen's Commentaries''; in 1922 under

Edward Jenks Edward Jenks, FBA (1861–1939) was an English jurist, and noted writer on law and its place in history. Born on 20 February 1861 in Lambeth, London, to Robert Jenks, upholsterer, and his wife Frances Sarah, née Jones, he was educated at Dulwic ...

most of the text was rewritten but the structure was realigned more closely to Blackstone's original.

Quotations

*"That the King can do no wrong, is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution." * "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer." *"There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of

; or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe. And yet there are very few, that will give themselves the trouble to consider the original and foundation of this right." (''Commentaries'', Book II Ch. I)

Notable editions

''A bibliography of The Commentaries of the Laws of England from Legal Bibliography''
(1905) # The Fifth Edition, Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, MDCCLXXIII., printed for William Strahan, Thomas Cadell, and Daniel Prince. 8vo., 4 vols. # The Twelfth Edition (with portraits of the judges), with the last corrections of the author and with notes and additions by Edward Christian, Esq., Barrister at Law and Professor of the Laws of England in the University of Cambridge, London, 1793–1795. 4 vols., 8vo. # Blackstone's ''Commentaries'': with notes of reference, to the Constitution and laws, of the federal government of the United States, and of the Commonwealth of Virginia : in five volumes, with an appendix to each volume, containing short tracts upon such subjects as appeared necessary to form a connected view of the laws of Virginia, as a member of the federal union / by St. George Tucker. # The Sixteenth Edition, with notes by J. F. Archbold, (added to Christian's), London, 1811. 4 vols., royal 8vo. # The Sixteenth Edition, with notes by J. T. Coleridge, London, 1825. # The Eighteenth Edition, with notes by J. Chitty, London, 1826 (often reprinted in America). # 'Commentaries on the laws of England: in four books''] / by Sir William Blackstone ... ; together with such notes of enduring value as have been published in the several English editions ; and also, a copious analysis of the contents ; and additional notes with references to English and American decisions and statutes, to date, which illustrate or change the law of the text ; also a full table of abbreviations and some considerations regarding the study of the law, by Thomas M. Cooley. Published: Chicago: Callaghan and Co., 1871, Second Edition 1876, Third Edition 1884, Fourth Edition edited by James DeWitt Andrews 1899. # ''Commentaries on the laws of England'' / by Sir William Blackstone, KT. Edition Information: From the author's 8th ed., 1778 / edited for American lawyers by William G. Hammond ; with copious notes, and references to all comments on the text in the American reports, 1787–1890. Published: San Francisco : Bancroft–Whitney Company, 1890. Description: 4 vols. # ''Commentaries on the Laws of England in Four Books'' / by Sir William Blackstone. Notes selected from the editions of Archibold, Christian, Coleridge, Chitty, Stewart, Kerr, and others, Barron Field's Analysis, and Additional Notes, and a Life of the Author by George Sharswood. In Two Volumes. (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1893). # ''Commentaries on the laws of England : in four books'' / by Sir William Blackstone ; with notes selected from the editions of Archbold, Christian, Coleridge, Chitty, Stewart, Kerr, and others ; and in addition, notes and references to all text books and decisions wherein the ''Commentaries'' have been cited, and all statutes modifying the text by William Draper Lewis. Published: Philadelphia : Rees Welsh and Company, 1897. Description: 4 vols. # ''Commentaries on the Laws of England by Sir William Blackstone'', Kt. ; edited by William Carey Jones. Published: San Francisco : Bancroft–Whitney, 1915–16. Description: 2 vols. # ''Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England''; edited by Wayne Morrison. 4 vols. Published: London: Routledge–Cavendish; London, England: 2001. Description 4 vols. # . # Online: Yale University https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/blackstone.asp

Abridgements

Ralph Thomas in ''

Notes & Queries Notes & Queries is a weekly column in ''The Guardian'' newspaper which publishes readers' questions together with (often humorous) answers submitted by other readers. The column first appeared on 13 November 1989, and was the idea of leader wr ...

'', 4th Series, II August 8, 1868 gave the following list of the abridgements of Blackstone's ''Commentaries''. # ''A Summary of the Constitutional Law of England: being an Abridgment of Blackstone's Commentaries''. By the Rev. Dr. J. Trusler, 1788, 12mo ; 228 and index. "Everything in Blackstone necessary for the general reader is here comprised ... and nothing omitted but what is peculiarly adapted to the profession of a lawyer." (Advertisement.) # ''The Commentaries of Sir W. Blackstone, Knight, on the Law and Constitution of England, carefully abridged in a new manner, and continued down to the present time'', by Wm. Curry 1796, 8vo; viii. contents, 566. 2nd edit. 1809. Consists of selections of the most essential parts in the words of the author. # ''Commentaries on the Law of England, principally in the order, and comprising the whole substance, of Commentaries of Sir W. Blackstone''. y J. Addams 1819, 8vo. # ''An Abridgment of Blackstone's Commentaries''. By John Gifford seud. i. e. Edward Foss 1821, 8vo. See No. VI. # ''An Abridgment of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, in a series of Letters from a Father to his Daughter, chiefly intended for the Use and Advancement of Female Education''. By a Barrister at Law, F.R., F.A., and F.L.S. ir E. E. Wilmot 1822, 12mo; viii. 304. # Same by Sir J. E.E. W. . . . A new edition he 2ndcorrected ... by his son Sir J. E. E. W. 3rd edit. 1855. # ''Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, abridged for the Use of Students'', &c. By John Gifford, author of the Life of . . . . Pitt seud. John Richards Green 1823, 8vo. # The British Constitution; or, an Epitome of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, for the Use of Schools. By Vincent Wanostrocht, LL.D., Alfred House Academy, Camberwell, 1823, 12mo; xi. 845. # An American Abridgment, 1832. r Thomas may be referring to John Anthon's ''An Analytical Abridgment of the Commentaries of Sir William Blackstone on the laws of England'': in four books: together with an analytical synopsis of each book, printed and published by Isaac Riley in 1809, second edition 1832.] # ''Select Extracts from Blackstone's Commentaries, carefully adapted to the Use of Schools and Young Persons; with a Glossary, Questions, and Notes, and a General Introduction''. By Samuel Warren, 1837, 12mo; xxvi. 428 (no index). # ''Commentaries on the Laws of England, in the Order and Compiled from the Text of Blackstone, and embracing the New Statutes and Alterations to the present time''. By J. Bethune Bayly, of the Middle Temple, 1840, roy. 8vo; li. 700. # A Synopsis of Blackstone's ''Commentaries''. London.

847 __NOTOC__ Year 847 ( DCCCXLVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Danish Vikings land in the Breton March (western part of Gaul). Duke Nominoe ...

A large single sheet in folio. # ''The Law Student's First Book'', being chiefly an Abridgment of Blackstone's ''Commentaries''; incorporating the Alterations in the Law down to the present time. By the Editors of ''The Law Student's Magazine'', 1848, 12mo; xxiv. 508, xvi. # Blackstone's ''Commentaries'' systematically arranged and adapted to the existing State of the Law and Constitution, with great Additions. By S. Warren, . . . 1855, 8vo 2nd edition, 1856. See IX. The original portions of Blackstone are indicated. # ''The Student's Blackstone''; Selections from the ''Commentaries on the Laws of England''. By Sir W. B.; being those portions of the work which relate to the British Constitution and the Rights of Persons. By R. M. Kerr, 1858, 12mo; xix. 575. ''The Student's Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England'', in four books, by Sir W. Blackstone, &c., abridged ... By R. M. Kerr. 2nd edit. 1865, 12mo; xx. 612. Other abridgments include: *Blackstone economized: being a compendium of the laws of England to the present time by Sir William Blackstone, David Mitchell Aird Published: London: Longmans, Green, & Co.: 1878 *''Essentials of the Law: A Review of Blackstone's Commentaries for the Use of Students at Law'' (1882) Author: Marshall Davis Ewell Published: Boston: Charles C Soule: 1882 *''Selections from Blackstone'' edited by William Carey Jones Published: San Francisco: Bancroft–Whitney Co. 1926. *''The Sovereignty of the Law: Selections from Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England'' edited by Gareth Jones, Published: London: Macmillan, 1973

References

Boorstin, Daniel J. Daniel Joseph Boorstin (October 1, 1914 – February 28, 2004) was an American historian at the University of Chicago who wrote on many topics in American and world history. He was appointed the twelfth Librarian of the United States Congress in ...

, ''The Mysterious Science of the Law: An Essay on Blackstone's Commentaries'' (Univ. Chicago, 1996). *Stacey, Robert D. ''Sir William Blackstone and the Common Law: Blackstone's Legacy to America'' (ACW, 2003)

External links

* ''Commentaries on the laws of England'', original edition 1765 *
Book the first
of the rights of persons (1765) *
Book the second
of the rights of things (1766) *
Book the third
of private wrongs *
Book the fourth
of public wrongs * ''The commentaries on the laws of England of Sir William Blackstone'' (1876, London : John Murray. Edited by

Robert Malcolm Kerr Mr Commissioner Robert Malcolm Kerr LL.D (5 June 1821–21 November 1902), was a British judge of the late Victorian era. Career Born in Glasgow, the son of John Kerr (1791-1853), a writer for ''The Signet'', and Elizabeth (née Malcolm) ...

)
- volume 1

- volume 2
* ''Commentaries on the laws of England: in four books'', edited by Thomas Cooley, Callaghan & Co, 1884—Third Edition
Books 1 & 2

Books 3 & 4''The Student's Blackstone Adapted and Abridged'' by R M N Kerr, William Clowes & Son, 1885—Ninth Edition
* {{use dmy dates, date=September 2015 1765 books 1766 books 1767 books 1768 books 1769 books English law Legal history of England Legal treatises Whig history

Contents