Preview
Identifier
KD 833 .L5713
Creation Date
1541
Description
[left to right]
Littleton, Sir Thomas. Lyttleton Tenures in Englysshe. London: Thomas Petyt, 1541?
Littleton, Sir Thomas. Lyttilton Tenures Truelye Translated into Englishe. London: Thomas Marshe 1556.
Littleton, Thomas. Littleton's Tenures, in French and English, with an Alphabetical Table of the Principal Matters Therein Contained. London: Printed by John Streater, James Flesher, and Henry Twyford, assigns of Richard Atkins, and Edward Atkins, 1671.
The first law book printed in England, Littleton's Tenures has been published in over ninety editions. The first edition, in law French, appeared in 1481 or 1482, shortly after Sir Thomas Littleton's death. Designed for his son as an introduction to the law, the book quickly became the standard textbook for legal students. Littleton (c.1407–1481) summarizes decisions from the Year Books and explains the reasoning and arguments behind them in clear and direct language. He focuses primarily on land law, the most important aspect of common law in his day. These three copies represent English translations printed after the first English edition in 1531. The 1671 edition was the first with parallel texts in English and French.
Title pages available as individual images under additional files, below.
Rights
Digital exhibit content is made available under CC BY-NC-SA.
Title page, Littleton (1541)
littleton_tenures_1556_title.jpg (1160 kB)
Title page, Littleton (1556)
littleton_tenures_1671_title.jpg (529 kB)
Title page, Littleton (1671)