View source for Countrey Justice

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''The Countrey Justice: Containing the Practice of the Justices of the Peace as well in and out of their Sessions''}}
===by Michael Dalton===
__NOTOC__
{{BookPageInfoBox
|imagename=DaltonCountreyJustice1666 TitlePage.jpg
|link=https://catalog.swem.wm.edu/law/Record/9960
|shorttitle=The Countrey Justice
|author=Michael Dalton
|edition=
|lang=English
|publoc=London
|publisher=Printed by John Streater, James Flesher, and Henry Twyford, assigns of Richard Atkyns, and Edward Atkyns, esquires
|year=1666
|pages=[14], 460 (i.e. 456), [10]
|desc=Folio (28 cm.)
|shelf=L-5
}}[[File:DaltonCountreyJustice1666InitialCapital.jpg|left|thumb|200px|<center>Initial capital.</center>]]Michael Dalton (1564-1644) was a barrister and legal writer, a member of Lincoln’s Inn, and a justice of the peace (JP) in the counties of Essex and, later, Cambridgeshire.<ref>D.A. Orr, "[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7067 Dalton, Michael (1564-1644)]" in ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', accessed May 21, 2015.</ref> ''The Countrey Justice'', a manual for justices of the peace and local magistrates, remains his best known work.<ref>Ibid.</ref><br/>
<br/> 
The office of justice of the peace originated during the Middle Ages, when the primary responsibility of JPs was to suppress riots and keep the peace.<ref>Mike Widener, "[http://library.law.yale.edu/news/taussig-collection-justice-peace-manuals The Taussig Collection: Justice of the peace manuals]," ''Yale Law School: Lillian Goldman Law Library'', April 21, 2014.</ref> By the sixteenth century, their power had increased and come to include various judicial and administrative tasks.<ref>Ibid.</ref> Most JPs, however, had no legal training, and a number of justice of the peace manuals were published to provide guidance in the form of clear, comprehensive, and easy to understand instruction.<ref>Ibid.</ref><br/>
<br/> 
''The Countrey Justice'' was among the most popular manuals, and was published in at least twenty editions between 1618 and 1746.<ref>Helen L. Hull, "[https://books.google.com/books?id=gBkWeMDgHpQC&pg=PA37&dq=Lowe+and+lay+ministers+of+the+peace:%E2%80%99+The+Proliferation+of+Officeholding+Manuals+in+Early+Modern+England&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMI3evdhaOUxgIVoS-MCh2XcAu4#v=onepage&q&f=false 'Lowe and lay ministers of the peace;' The Proliferation of Officeholding Manuals in Early Modern England]," in ''Renaissance Papers 2009'', ed. Christopher Cobb (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2010), 47.</ref> It provided a summary of the current law on a diverse array of subjects, from robbery and murder, to cattle and sheep, and included a particularly detailed description of the proper procedure for prosecuting witches. One of the earliest manuals to be arranged in alphabetical order, Dalton’s book was popular both in England and New England, where it provided a ready and accessible summary of the English common law for the new colonies.<ref>Edgar J. McManus, "[https://books.google.com/books?id=CkNMR7L68I0C&pg=PA3&dq=Laws+for+Living+Saints&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAGoVChMI6_y5s6OUxgIVwxiMCh2togCN#v=onepage&q&f=false Laws for Living Saints]," in ''Law and Liberty in Early New England: Criminal Justice and Due Process, 1620-1692'' (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993), 12.</ref> 

==Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library==

[[File:DaltonCountreyJustice1666Inscription.jpg|left|thumb|350px|<center>Manuscript notes, front fly-leaf.</center>]]

==Description of the Wolf Law Library's copy==
Recent full blind calf, gold tooled edges; annotation [in law french?] upside-down in brown/black ink on flyleaf.

View the record for this book in [https://catalog.swem.wm.edu/law/Record/9960 William &amp; Mary's online catalog.]

==See also==
*[[George Wythe Room]]
*[[Wythe's Library]]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Courts]]
[[Category:George Wythe Collection at William & Mary's Wolf Law Library]]
[[Category:Titles in Wythe's Library]]