English Common Law System

Timeline

1. 1166–1179England · EnglandHenry II issued the Constitutions of Clarendon (1166) and the Constitutions of Northampton (1176), establishing the itinerant court system and extending royal judicial authority nationwide. Jury trial and the accumulation of case precedent were systematized, and the common law system took initial shape.
2. 1215Runnymede, England · EnglandThe signing of Magna Carta established the principle that no one could be deprived of liberty without lawful judgment, becoming a landmark document of the common law constitutional tradition. It provided an institutional basis for law constraining royal power, and in the 17th century was reinterpreted by Sir Coke as a constitutional claim that common law is superior to the royal prerogative.
3. 1601–1610London, England · Greater LondonDuring his tenure as Attorney General (1594–1606) and Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas (from 1606), Edward Coke systematically compiled The Reports. With cases such as Prohibitions del Roy (1607) as representatives, he argued forcefully that the king could not personally administer justice and that common law was superior to royal prerogative, becoming an intellectual forerunner of the English constitutional revolution of the 17th century.
4. 1700the English-speaking world · GlobalThrough the colonial expansion of the British Empire, common law spread to North America, Australia, India, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. Alongside the continental civil law tradition, it stands as one of the two major legal traditions today, shaping the daily legal lives of over three billion people.