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Famous English Canon Lawyers: VII John Godolphin d.c.l. († 1678) and Richard Burn, d.c.l († 1785)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

J. H. Baker
J. H. Baker
Affiliation:
Professor of English Legal History, Cambridge
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Abstract

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Type
Research Article
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 3 , Issue 15 , July 1994 , pp. 214 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 1994

References

1. E.g. Hughes, W., Parson's Law (1641)Google Scholar; Sheppard, W., Parson's Guide (1654)Google Scholar; Degge, S., The Parson's Counsellor (1676; 7th ed., 1820)Google Scholar; Meriton, G., The Parson's Monitor (1681)Google Scholar; Nelson, W., The Rights of the Clergy (1709)Google Scholar; Bohun, W., The Law of Tithes (1730)Google Scholar. These are principally about tithes. Watson, W., Clergyman's Law (1701)Google Scholar, though published under the name of a clergyman, is said to have been written by a barrister of Gray's Inn called Place: see 1 Bl. Comm. 391n.

2. An advowson being a species of real property recoverable in the royal courts by writ of right of advowson or quare impedit. A reading on advowsons by John Dodderidge (Middle Temple, 1603) was printed as A Compleat Parson (1630).Google Scholar

3. At least 18 MSS. are known. Comparable in its display of erudition was Francis's Tate's Middle Temple reading (1607) on tithes, which survives in a unique, possibly autograph, text: CUL/MS. Oo.6.92(l) (anonymous, but identifiable with some confidence at Tate's).

4. There is a brief biography in DNB.

5. It was refounded as Worcester College.

6. Squibb, G. D., Doctors' Commons (1977), p. 177.Google Scholar

7. According to DNB and Squibb he became king's advocate; but he does not appear in the list of king's advocates-general in Sainty, J., A List of English Law Officers (1987), p. 77Google Scholar. Perhaps he was king's advocate in Admiralty causes.

8. Catalogus Variorum et Insignium Librorum … D. Johannis Godolphin, J.U.D., et D. Oweni Phillips, A.M., sold by William Cooper on 11 Nov. 1678 (copy in CUL, Fff. 7911). It is assumed that the law books were all Godolphin's, but there is no way of separating the remaining lots. The count includes 38 legal tracts listed on p. 36.

9. Prichard, M. J. and Yale, D. E. C., Hale and Fleetwood on Admiralty Jurisdiction (108 Selden Soc, 1993), p. cxiiiGoogle Scholar. See also Coquillette, D., The Civilian Writers of Doctors' Commons, London (Berlin 1988), pp. 186–189Google Scholar. DNB also records a treatise by Godolphin on Laws of the Admiralty, not published until 1746.

10. E.g. on p. 24–25 he discusses speculations that St Paul's was built on the site of a Roman temple of Diana and Westminster Abbey on the site of the temple of Apollo.

11. On p. 167 he asserts that the churchwardens may not dispose of goods in their custody without the assent of ‘the sidemen or vestry’, and that ‘the parishioners are a corporation to dispose of such personal things as appertain to the Church.’ He derives the word sidemen from ‘Synods-men’ (p. 163).

12. Dr Sutton's Case (1626) Litt. Rep. 2, 22; Cro. Car. 65 (prohibition denied by the Common Pleas). Litt. Rep. 2 says he was deprived ‘pur ceo que il ne fuit Batchelor ou Doctor del Civil Ley de officio’. In 1627, Dr Sutton applied to the King's Bench for a prohibition, but with the same result; Noy 91; Latch 228; Godb. 390; Wm Jones 393. The judges in the second case included Dodderidge and Whitelock JJ. (mentioned above).

13. Pratt v Stocke (1594), cited as Hil. 35 Eliz., rot 181; reported in Poph. 37 (cited as Mich. 33 & 34 Eliz., rot. 181); Cro. Eliz. 315 (plaintiff counts on administration by Thomas Tayler LL.B., commissary to the bishop of London; defendant pleads 37 Hen. VIII, c. 17; plaintiff demurs). The case was followed by the Bench, King's in Walker v Lamb (1632) Wm Jones 263Google Scholar; Cro. Car. 258 (William Walker LL.B. appointed official of the archdeacon of Leicester and commissary of the bishop of Lincoln).

14. Biography in DNB (by G. P. Macdonell).

15. Not proctor of the University.

16. He also wrote on ancient Roman law. In the year of his death (1732) was published his The Law of Pledges, or Pawns, as it was in use among the Romans. Ayliffe was also the author of an uncompleted New Pandect of Roman Civil Law, published in 1734, two years after his death: as to which, see Coquillette, , Civilian Writers, pp. 209–214Google Scholar. Professor Coquillette praises the latter (p. 212) as ‘a for midable treasure house of scholarship’.

17. Brief biography in DNB; Biographical Dictionary of the Common Law, 89–90Google Scholar (by D. E. C. Yale). See also Holdsworth H.E.L. XII: 332–334, 612–613.

18. The History and Antiquities of the Counties of Westmorland and Cumberland (1777), 2 volumesGoogle Scholar, was written jointly with Joseph Nicolson.

19. He was not the only learned clergyman in the 18th century to write on ecclesiastical law. Notice should be made of Prideaux, H., Directions to Churchwardens (1701; 10th ed., 1835)Google Scholar and Johnson, J., The Clergyman's Vade Mecum (1706)Google Scholar. Prideaux was a D.D., but is best remembered as an orientalist (DNB). For Watson, W., Clergyman's Law (1701),Google Scholar. see note 1, above; the editor, Dr Watson, possessed the LL.D. degree, which he had taken with a view to practice, but went into the Church instead.

20. His name was retained on the 10th and 11th editions (1786 and 1791), but by then he was himself dead and the editing was done by John Williams (later Serjeant Williams).

21. Some reference books (including DNB) mention a first edition of 1760, but this seems to be a ghost. Burn also published a Digest of the Militia Laws in 1760Google Scholar, and a History of the Poor Laws in 1764Google Scholar. A posthumous publication of little merit, edited by his son John, was A New Law Dictionary (1792)Google Scholar; this has an engraved portrait of Dr Burn.

22. End of preface to Ecclesistical Law. Waugh, John (d. 1765) was dean of Worcester 1751–65Google Scholar. Thomas Simpson, clerk of the peace 1728–68, was an attorney (adm. 1730): Stephens, E., The Clerks of the Counties 1360–1960 (1961), p. 72.Google Scholar

23. Foster, J., Alumni Oxonienses 1715–1886, p. 1513.Google Scholar

24. Francis Topham (d. 1770) was a Cambridge man, having taken his LL.D. from Sidney Sussex College; he was admitted an advocate of the Arches in 1747.

25. From 1767, it was published in four octavo volumes.

26. Tyrwhitt was not called to the Bar until the following year (1825). He was subsequently a metropolitan magistrate, and is better remembered for his Exchequer reports.

27. A Practical Arrangement of Ecclesiastical Law (1840; 2nd ed., 1849)Google Scholar. This was, as Phillimore remarked (preface to 9th ed., p.vii) ‘destined for the circuit’, and was no independent value. Rogers was Deputy Judge Advocate-General 1842–51.

28. Holdsworth H. E. L. XII:613.

29. E.g. Dr Trumbull's (c. 1668–73) in CUL MS. Add. 8866 (succession cases); Dr Sayer's (1714–28) in Lincoln's Inn MS. Misc. 147; Dr Lee's (1752–58), printed in 1832–33; Dr Burrell's (1765–69) in Kansas Univ. MS. E181. For some pre-1640 anonymous reports, see Helmholz, R. H., Roman Canon Law in Reformation England (Cambridge, 1990), 198–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. The first venture of this kind was Dr Joseph Phillimore's (1818), rapidly followed by Haggard and Addams.