Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > English Law

The system of law that has developed in England from approximately 1066 to the present.

The body of English law includes legislation, COMMON LAW, and a host of other legal norms established by Parliament, the Crown, and the judiciary. It is the fountain from which flowed nearly every facet of U.S. law during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Many of the concepts embodied in the U.S. Constitution—such as the separation and delegation of powers between three branches of government and the creation of an elective national assembly representing the will of the people—trace their roots to English law. Fundamental legal procedures applied in the U.S. civil and criminal justice systems also originated in England. The jury system, for example, slowly matured into its modern form over several hundred years of English history. The antecedents of many...