Le Court Leete, Et Court Baron, Collect per Iohn Kytchin de Grays..

1580. An Important Contribution to the Development of Modern Legal Theory Kitchin, John [c.1520-c.1590]. Le Court Leete, Et Court Baron, Collect per Iohn Kytchin de Grays Inne un Apprentice en le Ley, Et les Cases et Matters Necessarie pur Seneschals de Ceux Courts a Scier, Pur les Students de les Measons de Chauncerie. [London]: In Aedibus Richardi Tottelli, Octobris Quarto, 1580. [vi], 216 ff. Lacking two preliminary blank leaves counted in collation. Octavo (5-1/2" x 3-3/4"). Contemporary calf, blind rules and large arabesques to boards, raised bands, blind fillets and later lettering piece to spine, endpapers renewed. Negligible light rubbing to boards and extremities, corners lightly bumped, rear hinge starting at head. Moderate toning, slightly heavier in places, brief early annotations to a few leaves, early owner inscription (by Henry Gifford) to foot of title page. A fine copy in its original state. $1,850. * First edition as a separate publication, one of three issues. Ours has a preface dated 10 November; the others are dated October 4 and 10 October 1580. By outlining the differences between the previously undivided court, Kitchin, along with Coke, helped lay the foundations of modern legal theory. "In fact," notes Holdsworth, "Kitchin was doing on a small scale what Coke was doing on a grand scale. Both were representatives of that school of literate Elizabethan lawyers...whose great and enduring work was the adaptation of medieval law and institutions to modern needs. Imagination necessarily played some part in this process of adaptation; and thus they are responsible not only for the enunciation of the rules of modern law, but also for legal and historical theories, the soundness of which was considered by many generations of lawyers and historians to be as incontestable as their statements of law." According to Pollard & Redgrave, this work was originally published as Part II of Justices of the Peace and a both parts have a variant issue (identical to Beale T369) with a colophon dated 10 April 1580. See Pollard and Redgrave, A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland 14886, 14887. Holdsworth, A History of English Law IV:130. Beale, A Bibliography of Early English Law Books T369. English Short-Title Catalogue S108037.