LEGES EDWARDI CONFESSORIS

leges Edwardi Confessoris (lee-jeez ed-wahr-dI kon-f<<schwa>>-sor-is), n.[Latin “Laws of  Edward the Confessor”] Hist. A legal treatise written between 1130 and 1135, of dubious authority, compiling English law as it stood at the end of the reign of Henry I.

“[W]e have a book [leges Edwardi Confessoris] written in Latin which expressly purports to give us the law of Edward as it was stated to the Conqueror in the fourth year of his reign by juries representing the various parts of England …. It is a private work of a bad and untrustworthy kind. It has about it something of the political pamphlet and is adorned with pious legends. The author, perhaps a secular clerk of French parentage, writes in the interest of the churches, and, it is to be feared, tells lies for them.” 1 Frederick Pollock & Frederic W. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I 103 (2d ed. 1898).

[Blacks Law 8th]