The Law section describes the law governing the behavior and conduct of the populace. It includes law of that time which is the same, similar, or a building block to the law of today. In earlier times this is both statutory law and the common law of the courts. The Magna Carta, which is quoted in Chapter 7, is the first statute of England and is listed first in the "Statutes of the Realm" and the "Statutes at Large". The law sections of Chapters 7 - 18 mainly quote or paraphrase almost all of these statutes. Excluded are statutes which do not help us understand the development of our law, such as statutes governing Wales after its conquest and statutes on succession rights to the throne. The Judicial Procedure section describes the process of applying the law and trying cases, and jurisdictions. It also contains some examples of cases. For easy comparison, amounts of money expressed in pounds or marks [Danish denomination] have often been converted to the smaller denominations of shillings and pence. There are twenty shillings in a pound. A mark in silver is two-thirds of a pound. Shillings are abbreviated: "s." There are twelve pennies or pence in a Norman shilling. Pence are abbreviated "d." Six shillings and two pence is denoted 6s.2d. A scaett was a coin of silver and copper of lesser denomination than a shilling. There were no coins of the denomination of shilling during Anglo-Saxon times. The sources and reference books from which information was obtained are listed in a bibliography instead of being contained in tedious footnotes. There is no index to pages because the electronic text will print out its pages differently on different computers with different computer settings. Instead, a word search may be done on the electronic text. Dedication and Acknowledgements A Vassar College faculty member once dedicated her book to her students, but for whom it would have been written much earlier. This book "Our Legal Heritage" is dedicated to the faculty of Vassar College, without whom it would never have been written. Much appreciation goes to Professor James Curtin of Loyola Law School for his review and comments on this book's medieval period: Chapters 4-10, and especially his comment that "I learned quite a bit about life in those days from your work." Thanks go to Loyola University Law School Professor George Anastaplo for introducing me to Professor Curtin. Much appreciation goes to Professor Lacey Baldwin Smith of Northwestern University's History Department for his review and comments on this book's Tudor and Stuart periods: Chapters 11-17, especially his comment that he learned a lot. Thanks go to Northwestern University Law School Professor Steven Presser for introducing me to Professor Smith. Finally, many thanks go to fellow Mensan William Wedgeworth for proof-reading the entire book. Table of Contents Chapters: