Legal History Pathfinder
by Paul Axel-Lute
last revised October 12th, 2009
last revised October 12th, 2009
Contents
General & Miscellaneous Legal History
- For books in the library on general history of law, see call numbers K 140 - K 165.
- The Avalon Project (at Yale): historic legal documents from ancient times to the 20th century
- Famous Trials (Doug Linder)
- Selected Web Sources for Legal History (Tarlton Law Library, Univ.of Texas)
- Legal Classics Library (Hein Online) (Rutgers-restricted access) A searchable and browsable collection of about 1,500 works. The majority relate to Anglo-American law, but some works on ancient law and other legal systems are included.
- Medieval Legal History, in the Internet History Sourcebooks Project, Fordham Univ. (Paul Halsall, editor). Includes late Roman law, canon law, European and English law.
Ancient Law
- For books in the library, see especially these call numbers:
- KBB and KL : ancient law, including Greek law at KL 4100 - KL 4399. (KBB is an old classification that is being replaced by KL)
- KBD and KJA : Roman law (KBD is an old classification that is being replaced by KJA)
- Ancient Greek Laws in the World Wide Web (Ilias N. Arnaoutoglou)
- Ancient Legal History in the Internet History Sourcebooks Project, Fordham Univ. (Paul Halsall, editor).
- Annotated Justinian Code by Fred H. Blume
- Roman Law Library: a collection of Latin texts
- Roman Law Resources (Ernest Metzger, Univ. of Glasgow).
Common Law
- Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises 1800-1926 (Thomson Gale)(Rutgers Law School restricted access) (supported by Rutgers Law School Alumni Association)
- World Trials (Hein Online)(Rutgers Law School restricted access)
British Legal History
- For books in the library, see especially these call numbers:
- JN 111 to JN 261: British constitutional history
- KD 530 to KD 632: legal history of England
- The Anglo-American Legal Tradition: Documents from Medieval and Early Modern England from the National Archives in London (Univ. of Houston, O'Quinn Law Library). Includes English Legal History: A Statistical Overview by Prof. Robert C. Palmer.
- Bibliography on British and Irish Legal History (University of Wales Aberystwyth). Searchable (but not browsable) cumulation, to the late 1990's, of the bibliographies published in the Cambrian Law Review.
- Bracton Online: De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae (On The Laws and Customs of England) (13th century)(at Harvard Law School Library)
- British History Online: Administrative and legal history. Includes Statutes of the Realm volumes 5 to 7; Acts & Ordinances of the Interregnum; various court records.
- English Legal History Materials by Prof. Robert C. Palmer, Univ.of Houston. (Note: these pages will eventually migrate to the Anglo-American Legal Tradition site listed supra.)
- English Medieval Legal Documents, AD 600 - AD 1535: A Compilation of Published Sources (by Hazel Lord, Univ. of Southern California Law Library) An extensive bibliography on all sources of medieval English law, including information on their online availability.
- English Reports Full Reprint (1220-1865) (Hein Online) (Rutgers restricted access)
- Equity Pleadings Database (National Archives, UK)
- Finding English Statutes & Cases & selected "books of authority" at the Rutgers-Newark Law Library
- Legal History: The Yearbooks, " Medieval English Legal History, An Index and Paraphrase of Printed Year Book Reports, 1268 - 1535, compiled by David J. Seipp (Seipp's Abridgement)"
- Magna Carta (at National Archives & Records Admin.) (includes translation & image of original)
- Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, 1275-1504 (Rutgers-restricted access)
- The Proceedings of the Old Bailey London, 1674 to 1834. Sometimes cited as the Old Bailey Sessions Papers (OBSP), these are accounts of criminal trials. The online version is elaborately indexed and fully searchable; the site includes an extensive bibliography.
- Selden Society Publications and the History of Early English Law (Hein Online) (Rutgers Law School restricted access)
American Legal History
- For books in the library, see especially these call numbers:
- JK 11 to JK 371 and KF 4541 to KF 4545: United States constitutional history
- KF 351 to KF 374: United States legal history
- KF 8742 to KF 8745: History of the U.S. Supreme Court, and biographies of its Justices
- American Memory: A Century of Law-Making for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875
- American State Papers, 1789-1838 (Readex) (Rutgers restricted access)
- Documents for American Legal History (Robert C. Palmer)
- Historical Society of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey
- History of the Federal Judiciary (at Federal Judicial Center)
- The Law of Slavery in New Jersey (Paul Axel-Lute) Annotated bibliography with collection of texts of statutes and cases.
- New Jersey Law 1790s-1920s (Prof. Paul Clemens, History Department, Rutgers Univ.) A collection of statutes and cases on abortion, divorce law, water rights & other economic disputes, criminal responsibility, and slavery.
- Supreme Court Historical Society: includes biographies of current Justices and historical table of nominees.
- U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980 (Readex) (Rutgers restricted access)
- Women's Legal History Biography Project (Stanford Univ.)
General Historical Databases
This is a selection of general databases most likely to be useful in researching legal history. (Access to most of the databases listed in this section is Rutgers-restricted.) The Rutgers University Libraries site provides access to many other Indexes and Databases.
- America: History and Life Index, with abstracts, of articles written since 1964, covering United States and Canadian history.
- American Periodical Series Online 1740-1900
- C19: The Nineteenth Century Index
- Early American Imprints, Series I, Evans, 1689-1800
- Early English Books Online About 125,000 works printed in English between 1645 and 1700; records of these works can also be retrievd in IRIS.
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online.
- Historical Abstracts Index, with abstracts, of articles written since 1965, on world history from 1450 to present; excludes United States and Canada.
- Proquest Historical Newspapers: New York Times (1851 to three years ago)
- Royal Historical Society Bibliography