Historians of the English legal profession have written comparatively little about the lawyers who served in the courts of the Church. This volume fills a gap; it investigates the law by which they were governed and discusses their careers in legal practice. Using sources drawn from the Roman and canon laws and also from manuscripts found in local archives, R. H. Helmholz brings together previously published work and new evidence about the professional careers of these men. His book covers the careers of many lesser known ecclesiastical lawyers, dealing with their education in law, their reaction to the coming of the Reformation, and their relationship with English common lawyers on the eve of the Civil War. Making connections with the European ius commune, this volume will be of special interest to English and Continental legal historians, as well as to students of the relationship between law and religion.

Exploration of manuscript records and civil law sources to provide a fuller account of the history of the legal profession in England.

In the aftermath of sixth-century barbarian invasions, the legal profession that had grown and flourished during the Roman Empire vanished. Nonetheless, professional lawyers suddenly reappeared in Western Europe seven hundred years later during the 1230s when church councils and public authorities began to impose a body of ethical obligations on those who practiced law. James Brundage's The Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession traces the history of legal practice from its genesis in ancient Rome to its rebirth in the early Middle Ages and eventual resurgence in the courts of the medieval church. By the end of the eleventh century, Brundage argues, renewed interest in Roman law combined with the rise of canon law of the Western church to trigger a series of consolidations in the profession. New legal procedures emerged, and formal training for proctors and advocates became necessary in order to practice law in the reorganized church courts. Brundage demonstrates that many features that characterize legal advocacy today were already in place by 1250, as lawyers trained in Roman and canon law became professionals in every sense of the term. A sweeping examination of the centuries-long power struggle between local courts and the Christian church, secular rule and religious edict, The Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession will be a resource for the professional and the student alike.

This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the principal legal landmarks in the evolution of the law of the established Church of England from the Reformation to the present day. It explores the foundations of ecclesiastical law and considers its crucial role in the development of the Church of England over the centuries. The law has often been the site of major political and theological controversies, within and outside the church, including the Reformation itself, the English civil war, the Restoration and rise of religious toleration, the impact of the industrial revolution, the ritualist disputes of the 19th century, and the rise of secularisation in the twentieth. The book examines key statutes, canons, case-law, and other instruments in fields such as church governance and ministry, doctrine and liturgy, rites of passage (from baptism to burial) and church property. Each chapter studies a broadly 50-year period, analysing it in terms of continuity and change, explaining the laws by reference to politics and theology, and evaluating the significance of the legal landmarks for the development of church law and its place in wider English society.

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Explores the impact of legal ideas and legal consciousness on early modern English society and culture.

Church Ethics and Its Organizational Context is the first book to provide a broadly interdisciplinary approach to understanding the leadership crisis in the Catholic Church in the wake of the sex abuse scandal and how it was handled. Well-known scholars, religious clergy, and laymen in the trenches of church formation and leadership come together from the disciplines of organizational behavior, theology, sociology, history, and law, to foster the creation of a new code of ethics that is both ecclesial and professional. Touching on issues of governance, authority, accountability, and transparency, this volume goes on to specifically explore whether and how professional ethics can shape the identity and actions of Church leaders, ministers, and their congregations. While evoked by the sex scandal in the Church, the essays in this book raise questions that have implications far beyond this current issue, to much broader issues such as the role of professionalism in ethics and what it means for an organization to engage in moral action.