Wednesday, November 2: Rare Books Group Open House

Come out this Wednesday to our November open house for the rare books group! Due to October success, we will have open houses on the first Wednesdays of the month. 

It is a great way to see (more) treasures from the Library's rare books collection, and of course enjoy free snacks and drinks!

Rare Books Group Open House

When: Wednesday, November 2, 1 p.m - 3 p.m.

Where: Riesenfeld Rare Books Center (N30 - on the sub-plaza past Sullivan Cafe)

What: See treasures from the rare books collection, and enjoy snacks and drinks!

Our Year Books, and the Case of Thorns (1466)

Year Book, Michaelmas term, 6 Edward 4 (London, Tottle: 1557)

The English Year Books, the earliest English law reports, are a rich repository of English decisions dating back to the reigns of medieval kings.  The practice of reporting itself seems to have originated informally among students of the law; the early reporters are unknown and their reports circulated in manuscript before the advent of printing.  The Year Books stretch back to the 13th century and extend to 1535, and were printed and reprinted often in the 16th century.  The earliest title in our rare books collection is in fact an abridgement of case reports known as Statham's Abridgement (1490), and our collection of Year Books is one of the strongest outside of England.

In September, I showed several copies of our Year Books featuring the Case of Thorns (1466) in Professor David Weissbrodt's Torts class.  The class begins with an analysis of this English classic, with its early theory of civil liability.  In the case, a man who cuts branches from a bush on his own property and goes to retrieve the waste from his neighbor's property (where it had fallen), is found liable for trespass.

Our rare books collection includes three printings of the Case of Thorns from before 1600.  The first two are Year Books from Richard Tottell's press, dating to 1557; the third, also by Tottell, from 1572.  Tottell was the most prolific printer of law books in 16th-century England, and a founding member of the Stationer's Company, who held a royal patent to publish law books from 1553 until his death in 1593.

Our first two copies of the Case of Thorns contain an interesting misprint of a key part of the case.  Instead of text that should read "ipso invito" (the thing [done] against his will), our 1557 editions have "ipso muto" (the thing having been changed).  The case depends on the fact that the thorns fell on the plaintiff's property "against or without [the defendant's] will."  In one of our editions an early student or lawyer even crossed out "ipso muto" and wrote in "ipso invito" (pictured below).  By 1572, Tottell and his workshop had corrected the error.  It may have annoyed practitioners, but was a good test for law students.    

Reading the text even in the early modern period took training - the Year Books were written in Latin or Law French and were highly abbreviated.  The dense Gothic script in which they were printed did not help matters much.  Below is the beginning of the Case of Thorns, with an approximation of the marks used to abbreviate the (already difficult) Law French.  It is a good thing that students who still wrestle with the Case of Thorns today do so in more readable form.           

Un home port br̃ de tñs quar̃ vi et armis clam̃ fr̃ et c. Et herbam suam pedibus conculcando consumpsit supp̃ le tñs en v. ac̃r et le def, dit quaunte a veñ et c.: et le trñs en les v. ac̃r de rien coup̃ et quant a le tñs en le v. ac̃r ac̃c̃ ne doit le pÌ aver̃ q̃r il dit q̃ il m̃ ad un ac̃r de terre sur quell un hay de thornes est…

First page of the Case of Thorns, with "ipso muto" struck out and "ipso invito" written above

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections

Wednesday, October 5: Rare Books Group Open House

Come out tomorrow to an open house for the rare books group! It is a great way to see treasures from the Library's rare books collection, and of course enjoy free snacks and drinks!

Rare Books Group Open House

When: Wednesday, October 5, 1 p.m - 3 p.m.

Where: Riesenfeld Rare Books Center (N30 - on the sub-plaza past Sullivan Cafe)

What: See treasures from the rare books collection, and enjoy snacks and drinks! 

Bobbleheads Open House - Winners!

Congratulations to the winners of the prize drawings from the bobbleheads exhibit open house! The main drawing, for a bobblehead of Supreme Court justice David Brewer (1837-1910), was won by Franklin Rosenberg. Among other case references, the Brewer figure stands at a washtub, representing his opinion in Muller v. Oregon (1908) that limited the hours women could work.  Great thanks to The Green Bag and its editor, Professor Ross Davies, for the Brewer bobblehead.

Equal congratulations to Alex Galle-From and Nick Muellerleile, the winners of the Roberts Challenge. The Challenge asked participants to correctly identify case references on the newest Supreme Court bobblehead, that of Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. The identifications were: a) the broccoli held in Roberts's left hand; b) the crab near his left foot; and c) the reference to "oysters and raisins" on the base of the bobblehead. Mr. Galle-From and Mr. Muellerleile's correct entries were selected from a drawing.


The answers to the puzzle are as follows: a) National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. In the Chief Justice's majority opinion, broccoli is referenced 12 times, most memorably as "the broccoli horrible," the hypothetical specter of a mandate to purchase the green vegetable. The crab refers to: b) FCC v. AT&T, a case in which Roberts noted that adjectival meanings of words, like "crabbed," may differ from their noun roots (i.e., crab). Finally, and interestingly for us, is c) Horne v. Department of Agriculture, a case that centered on the Takings Clause. In his opinion, Roberts distinguished "oysters" from "raisins" by observing that raisins were the fruits of Horne's labor, whereas oysters were "ferae naturae," or of a wild nature, belonging to the state. The government ultimately had to compensate Horne for a taking (by remitting a large fine).  

The principle that some animals are "of a wild nature" and owned by the state is reflected in an early English case that we have in our rare books collection. In The Case of Swans (1592), the royal court found the swans at issue were "ferae naturae," and thus could not be acquired by transfer or prescription. They were also "Royal fowl," owned by the Queen.     

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections