THORNTON SUMMA DE LEGIBUS ET CONSUETUDINIBUS ANGLIE

This material is held atLSE Library Archives and Special Collections

Reference
- GB 97 COLL MISC 0070
Dates of Creation
- 1939-[ongoing]
Language of Material
- English.
Physical Description
- 1 volume

Scope and Content

Photostat copy of the Harvard manuscript of Thornton's Summa de Legibus....Anglie.

Includes copy of Theodore F.T.Plucknett 'The Harvard Manuscript of Thornton's Summa', 1938.

Administrative / Biographical History

Gilbert de Thornton was sent to Ireland on Edward I's service in 1284. In 1290 he was appointed chief justice of the King's Bench, and in 1295 he was summoned to parliament. He died the same year. Thornton wrote Summa de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Anglie which dealt with the subject of legal history, in about 1290. The manuscript remained relatively unknown until 1647,when John Selden referred to it in his work Dissertatio Historica. The manuscript at Harvard is a copy of Thornton's original work. It is likely that the original perished in a fire of 1679 at Lincoln's Inn in which many of Selden's books and manuscripts were destroyed.

Theodore Frank Thomas Plucknett 1897 - 1965 was a legal historian. He was born in Bristol and educated at Leicester and Newchurch, Leicester. From 1923 to 1926 he was Instructor in Legal History at Harvard Law School. In 1926 he became Assistant Professor. In 1931 he left Harvard for the London School of Economics, where he remained until 1965. Until 1963 he was Professor of Legal History, when he became Emeritus Professor. From 1954 - 1958 he was Dean of Faculty of Laws.

Plucknett was also Ford's Lecturer at Oxford University 1946 - 1947, Creighton Lecturer at London University in 1953 and Wiles Lecturer at Belfast University in 1958. He served on a number of prominent bodies, as joint literary editor of the Selden Society in 1937, Chairman of the Master of the Rolls' Archives Committee in 1937, and President of the Royal Historical Society from 1948 to 1952.

His works include: