Early History of Equity

Authors

W S. Holdsworth, St Johns College, Oxford

Abstract

Mr W. T. BARBOUR'S Essay on the History of Contract in early English Equity, which has been published this year in Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History, is one of the most, if not the most, valuable of the contributions to English Legal History which has yet appeared in that series. Mr. BARBOUR is to be congratulated on his first appearance in a field in which the harvest, though somewhat difficult to collect, is very abundant,-- in a field in which the labourers are all too few. I think too that the Essay is important not only because it deals well and thoroughly with the early history of an important branch of the Chancellor's equitable jurisdiction, but also because it indicates the right manner in which the abundant material for this period in the early history of equity should be treated. But in order to explain this it is necessary to glance rapidly at the chief periods in the history of equity and their leading characteristics. We shall then be in a position to understand the method which Mr. BARBOUR has pursued, and the value of the results which the pursuit of this method has enabled him to attain.

Recommended Citation

W S. Holdsworth, Early History of Equity, 13 Mich. L. Rev. 293 (1915).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol13/iss4/2