1. Jeake, Diary, pp. 162, 165–6; J.F.W. Hill (ed.), The Letters and Papers of the Banks Family of Revesby Abbey 1704–1760, Lincolnshire Record Society 45 (1952), p. 103
2. J.H. Baker, ‘New light on Slade’s case’ in J.H. Baker, The Legal Profession and the Common Law (London, 1986), pp. 424–6, especially n.83; David Ibbetson, ‘Sixteenth century contract law: Slade’s Case in context’, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 4 (1983), pp. 312–13
3. Theoretically, damages above the value of the debt were not considered actionable in suits of debt, but by the seventeenth century they were normally included in small amounts. Ibbetson, ‘Slade’s Case in context’, p. 309; William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (London, 1765–1769), III, p. 120
4. David Ibbetson, ‘Assumpsit and debt in the early Sixteenth Century: the origins of the indebitatus count’, Cambridge Law Journal, 41 (1982), pp. 152–3
5. Marx argued that private property was the means for the individual accumulation of capital, and that the establishment of the legal ‘rights’ of property were the chief characteristics of this stage in the transformation to capitalism. Karl Marx, Capital, I, pp. 875–95, 1083–4; III, pp. 917–50. C.B. Macpherson, building on Marx’s ideas, also argued that private property was central to what he saw as the emerging ‘possessive market economy’ of the seventeenth century. He also claimed that defence of the ownership of property, such as land, was crucial to the political theory of the Levellers, Hobbes, and Locke. C.B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (Oxford, 1962), pp. 53–68, chs. 3, 5 passim. It has recently been shown, however, by James Tully that Macpherson misinterpreted the contemporary meaning of the word ‘property’ which did not refer to ownership, but simply to ‘rightv. James Tully, A Discourse on Property, John Locke and his Adversaries (Cambridge, 1980), passim. The best description of the changes in real property in this period from something held in trust for the community to ownership attributed to a person can be found in W.J. Jones, ‘A note on the demise of manorial jurisdiction: the impact of Chancery’, American Journal of Legal History, 10 (1966), pp. 304–6.