Recently, a chum asked me, 'So is the Common Law the fabled "social contract"?'
My response:
'Not
quite. Anglo-Saxon Common Law predates the Norman Conquest and was
written down in Anglo-Saxon and not Latin. It is one of those germanic
bodies of law which was devised privately when rights were based on
kinship, i.e. folk right. As such, its basis is in the libertarian
aristocracy practised by the Anglo-Saxon nobility, descended from the
same Indo-European practice. It was upon this that English Common Law
developed. Sadly, but to a lesser extent than other germanic law
systems, this was intermingled with Roman Law which was fundamentally
statist despite also being developed by private bodies. This was merged
with Anglo-Saxon law to become what we know as English Common Law which
is, most significantly, the system the US legal system is based upon.
Thus, Burke's 'ancient constitution' or 'ancient rights and liberties'
of the Englishman and every Englishman's home being his castle.'
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