1. This chapter draws heavily on Glenn Burgess, ‘Custom, Reason and the Common Law: English Jurisprudence 1600–1650’, Cambridge PhD thesis, 1988, chpts 2 & 3.
2. This question is raised by M. I. Finley, ‘The Ancestral Constitution’ in his The Use and Abuse of History (London, 1975, pbk. ed. 1986), chpt. 2.
3. J. G. A. Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: A Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1957, new ed. with retrospect, 1987). In Chapter I of the ‘Retrospect’ Pocock comments on this misreading of his initial text.
4. A number of specialized studies of Coke are referred to below. In addition to these, good general introductions are Stephen D. White, Sir Edward Coke and the Grievances of the Commonwealth (Manchester, 1979), esp. chpt. 1
5. Louis A. Knafla, ‘Die Theorie des “Common Law”’, in Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie: Die Philosophie des 17. Jahrhunderts, Band 3— England (Basel, 1988), pp. 517–27, 590–3. Both of these have extensive references to other materials. A useful short interpretative essay is Samuel E. Thorne, Sir Edward Coke 1552–1952 (London, 1957)