Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book the First

William Blackstone (1723-1780) built this work from the lectures he gave at Oxford, where he was elected the first Vinerian professor of law. This first book of his Commentaries on the Laws of England carries the date 1765 on its title page and presents the law of the land as a subject every educated gentleman ought to know.

After an introduction on the study of the law, on the nature of laws in general and on the countries subject to English law, the book turns to the rights of persons. Its chapters cover the rights of individuals, Parliament, the King and his prerogative and revenue, magistrates, the clergy, and the military and maritime states.

It then moves to relations within families and society: master and servant, husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward, and corporations. The prose is eighteenth-century and thick with footnotes, but it gives a clear view of how the English constitution was understood in its own time.