Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > Ward, Nathaniel

Nathaniel Ward was a Puritan minister, attorney, and writer who compiled a code of statutes for colonial Massachusetts entitled The Body of Liberties, which was adopted by the colony in 1641. This code, which combined English COMMON LAW with Mosaic law (laws derived from the Old Testament of the Bible), was the first comprehensive set of laws enacted in New England.

Ward was born around 1578 in Haverhill, Suffolk, England. He graduated from Cambridge University in 1599 and then studied law at Lincoln's Inn in London. He practiced law for ten years and then decided to enter the ministry. Attracted to Puritan religious doctrine, Ward was dismissed from his ministry in 1633 and forced to leave England to avoid religious persecution. He arrived in Massachusetts in 1634 and became co-pastor of a church in Agawam. In 1636, however, he left the ministry and...