Les Commentaries, ou Reportes de Edmunde Plowden vn Apprentice de le Comen Ley, di Diuers Cases Esteants Matters en Ley, & de les Arguments sur Yceux, en les Temps des Raygnes le Roye Edwarde le Size, le Roigne Mary, le Roy & Roigne Phillip & Mary, & le Roigne Elizabeth

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by Edmund Plowden

Reportes de Edmunde Plowden
George Wythe bookplate.jpg
Title not held by The Wolf Law Library
at the College of William & Mary.
  
Author Edmund Plowden
Editor {{{editor}}}
Translator {{{trans}}}
Published Londini: in ædibus Richardi Tottelli
Date 1578
Edition First
Language French
Volumes volume set
Pages
Desc. Folio

Edmund Plowden (1518 - 1585) was born in Shropshire, the eldest son of a local landowner.[1] A member of the Middle Temple, Plowden began recording cases around 1550.[2] Plowden's devotion to Catholicism, while politically and socially unpopular at varying points in his life, did little to derail his successful career.[3] He held a variety of posts and positions including an appointment to the council in the marches of Wales, membership on a commission of the peace, and member of Parliament.[4] Additionally, he was raised to the bench at Middle Temple in 1557.[5]

Despite his professional obligations, Plowden authored several books, including his seminal work Les Commentaries, ou, Les Reportes ... de Divers Cases ... en les Temps des Raignes le Roy Ed. le size, le Roigne Mary, le Roy & Roigne Philip & Mary, & le Roigne Elizabeth in 1571. He subsequently revised it on a number of occasions.[6] Plowden died on February 6, 1585 and is buried in the Middle Temple Church.[7]

Les Commentaries, ou, Les Reportes, a collection of case reports, differs in two significant ways from the traditional Year Books.[8] First, Plowden was the first eminent lawyer to publish a case book in his lifetime; second, the case notes focus on points of law and the judges rulings instead of the pleading points that were so heavily prominent in the year books.[9]

According to legal bibliographer J.G. Marvin, "Plowden is regarded as the most accurate of all reporters" and his Reports "most deservedly [bear] as high a character as any book of Reports ever published."[10] Les Reports was published multiple times in Law French with the last French edition coming in 1784. The first English translation was published in 1761.[11]

Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library

There is no doubt that George Wythe owned Commentaries, ou Reportes de Edmunde Plowden—a copy of the first Law French edition (1578) at the Library of Congress includes Wythe's bookplate and manuscript notes by Wythe.[12] Thomas Jefferson also listed "Plowden’s reports. French. fol" in his inventory of Wythe's Library, noting that he kept the volume himself. He later sold it to the Library of Congress. Not surprisingly, all four of the Wythe Collection sources (Goodwin's pamphlet[13], Dean's Memo[14], Brown's Bibliography[15] and George Wythe's Library[16] on LibraryThing) list the first edition of Plowden's Commentaries.

The Wolf Law Library has yet to acquire a copy of Les Commentaries, ou Reports de Edmund Plowden.

References

  1. ↑ Christopher W. Brooks, "Plowden, Edmund (c.1518–1585)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004- ), accessed February 4, 2014.
  2. ↑ Ibid.
  3. ↑ Ibid.
  4. ↑ Ibid.
  5. ↑ Ibid.
  6. ↑ Ibid.
  7. ↑ Ibid.
  8. ↑ Brooks, "Plowden, Edmund;" Allen D. Boyer, Sir Edward Coke and the Elizabethan Age (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 32-33.
  9. ↑ Ibid.
  10. ↑ Marvin, Legal Bibliography, or a Thesaurus of American, English, Irish and Scotch Law Books, (T. & J. W. Johnson, Lawbook Sellers, 1847), 574-575.
  11. ↑ Ibid.
  12. ↑ E. Millicent Sowerby, Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 2nd ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983), 2:325-326, [no. 2026].
  13. ↑ Mary R. M. Goodwin, The George Wythe House: Its Furniture and Furnishings (Williamsburg, Virginia: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library, 1958), XLV.
  14. ↑ Memorandum from Barbara C. Dean, Colonial Williamsburg Found., to Mrs. Stiverson, Colonial Williamsburg Found. (June 16, 1975), 5 (on file at Wolf Law Library, College of William & Mary).
  15. ↑ Bennie Brown, "The Library of George Wythe of Williamsburg and Richmond," (unpublished manuscript, May, 2012, rev. May, 2014) Microsoft Word file. Earlier edition available at: https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/13433.
  16. ↑ LibraryThing, s.v. "Member: George Wythe," accessed on May 12, 2015.
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