The Booke Called, The Mirrour of Justices: Made by Andrew Horne...
Unrestored 1646 First English Edition of Horne & Fitzherbert in Period Binding Horne, Andrew [d.1328]. H[ughes], W[illiam], Translator. [Fitzherbert, Anthony (1470-1538)]. The Booke Called, The Mirrour of Justices: Made by Andrew Horne. With the Book, Called, The Diversity of Courts, And Their Jurisdictions. Both Translated Out of the Old French into the English Tongue. London: Matthew Walbancke, 1646. Octavo. 5-1/4" x 3-1/4"; 133 x 83 mm. [32], 288, 287-325, [9] pp. Complete with the initial blank leaf A1. Contemporary speckled sheep, blind rules to boards, blind fillets and early red morocco lettering piece to spine, blind rules to board edges, edges of text block rouged, early manuscript title ("Lawe") to the fore-edge. Faint staining and a few shallow scuffs to boards, light rubbing to extremities, foot of spine and bottom-edge of front board repaired, chipping to head of spine, vertical crack to lettering piece, corners bumped and lightly worn, front hinge mended with tissue, rear hinge starting before free endpaper, later bookplate (of Dr. and Mrs. H.R. Knohl) to front pastedown. Light toning to interior, small spots to a few leaves. A very good, sound copy in a contemporary binding. $1,250. * First edition in English of this controversial and highly influential early English legal text, written circa 1290 and first published in the original Law-French in 1642. The Mirrour of Justices achieved prominent authority in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as English jurists sought historical precedents to organize the common law. However, its reliability as a historical source remains famously contested. As Frederic William Maitland famously observed, the text is the work of an author deeply dissatisfied with the royal judiciary who "appeals to myths and legends about the law of King Alfred's day... some of which myths and legends were perhaps traditional, while others were deliberately concocted." Maitland notes that while highly instructive, the intelligent reader must often infer that the actual law was the exact opposite of what the text asserts. Bound herein, as issued, is the first English translation of The Diversity of Courts, a treatise traditionally attributed to Sir Anthony Fitzherbert. Maitland, Collected Papers II:46. English Short-Title Catalogue.
Price: $1,250.00
Book number 79278