"HIS GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT IN LEGAL HISTORY": LAMBARDE'S ARCHEION, 1635 FIRST EDITION

LAMBARDE, William. Archion, or, a Commentary upon the High Courts of Justice in England. London: for Daniel Frere, 1635. 16mo, period-style full dark brown mottled calf, elaborately gilt-decorated spine and covers, raised bands, all edges gilt; pp. (5), 280. $2600.

First edition of Lambarde's influential first history of the King's Courts—a desirable copy beautifully bound in period-style elaborately gilt-decorated calf.

"By 1591 [Lambarde] had completed his greatest achievement in legal history, Archeion, or, A discourse upon the high courts of justice in England, which although it circulated extensively in manuscript, was published by his grandson only in 1635. Here he propounded a vision of political society grounded in historically validated laws and customs. He sought to trace the two essential components of this system of government, the common law and the prerogative, to an equally distant Anglo-Saxon past. As for parliament, Lambarde wrote, 'I see not how I can derive it from any other time, than from that, in which the German or English did set their first foot on this Land, to invade it' (W. Lambarde, Archeion, ed. C. H. McIlwain and P. L. Ward, 1957, 126-7). For him, the establishment of a firm basis for contemporary society could only mean an appeal to the past, and his conclusions were considered valid by those who began, as he did, with a belief in the continuity of institutions which could change their name and structure but not their essential functions. The precise extent of the prerogative and of the common law was a contentious issue, and Lambarde's writings and actions revealed a consistently high opinion of the latter, although not at the expense of the essential function of the former" (ODNB). "Archeion is an able historical summary of the position of the courts of common law, and of those newer courts and councils which had been developing so rapidly in the 16th century. It shows how hazy the relations of all those courts new and old were to each other in the Tudor period" (Holdsworth, 38). HLC I, 1112. Marvin, 444. NYU, 164.

Title page skillfully rehinged; text generally clean. Gilt-decorated calf binding fine and beautiful—an excellent copy of this scarce and influential work.