Book #75270
Item #75270 A Treatise of Testaments and Last Wills, Fit to be Understood by All. Henry Swinburne.
A Treatise of Testaments and Last Wills, Fit to be Understood by All.
A Treatise of Testaments and Last Wills, Fit to be Understood by All.

A Treatise of Testaments and Last Wills, Fit to be Understood by All.

The First Standard English Treatise on Wills Swinburne, Henry [1560?-1623]. A Treatise of Testaments and Last Wills, Fit to be Understood by All Men, That they May Know, Whether, Whereof, And How, To Make Them. Compiled Out of the Laws Ecclesiasticall, Civill and Canon, As also Out of the Common Laws, Customes and Statutes of this Realm. The Fourth Edition, Very Much Enlarged with Many Choice Cases, And All such Statutes Relating to this Subject as Have been Published Unto this Time. With an Exact Table to the Whole. London: Printed by George Sawbridge, Thomas Roycroft, And William Rawlins, 1677. [xiv], 167, [1], 201-303, [1], 295-466, [20] pp. Quarto (9-1/4" x 7-1/4"). Contemporary calf, rebacked in period style, blind rules to boards, raised bands, blind fillets and lettering piece to spine, corners and hinges mended. Moderate rubbing and some shallow scuffing to boards, moderate wear to board edges, front hinge cracked, early owner signature (Thomas Walker) and later armorial bookplate (Sir John E. Swinburne) to front pastedown, another later armorial bookplaet (Thomas Walker) to verso of title page. Moderate toning to interior, faint spotting in a few places, offsetting and moderate edgewear to endleaves, brief early annotatons in miniscule hand to rear pastedown and title page, which is lightly soiled. $750. * Fourth stated edition, actually the fifth. The testamentary jurisdiction of ecclesiastical law was a separate branch that produced its own literature. Swinburne's treatise was the standard work on this subject from its first publication in 1591 until the early nineteenth century. (Its last edition, the tenth, appeared in 1803.) Holdsworth, who cites it often and considers it "the most practically useful book of [its] period" notes that "it is a very useful summary of the law as to wills and executors as administered in the ecclesiastical courts." Many of the annotations in our copy are page references to a book noted as "God," most likely Godolphin's treatise on wills, The Orphans Legacy: Or, A Testamentary Abridgment (first edition, 1677). Holdsworth, A History of English Law V:14. English Short-Title Catalogue R34630.

Price: $750.00

Book number 75270

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