M 



LITTLETON, THOMAS. 



LIUTPRANDUS. 



903 



it : see the extract from his will given below), of Frankley in 

 Worcestershire, whose surname and arms he took. He was educated 

 at one of the universities, and thence removed to the Inner Temple, 

 where in due time he became one of the readers of that society : Sir 

 Edward Coke mentions his reading on the statute 'Westm. 2, De 

 donia conditionalibus.' He was appointed by Henry VI. steward or 

 judge of the court of the palace or marshalsea of the king's house- 

 hold. On the 13th of May 1455, in the 33 Henry VI., he was made 

 kind's Serjeant, and in that capacity rode the northern circuit as judge 

 of assize. In 1454 he had a general pardon under the great seal, and 

 two years after was in commission, with Humphrey, duke of Bucking- 

 ham, and \\ illiam Birmingham, Esq., to raise forces in the county of 

 Warwick. (Collins, ' Peerage,' who gives as his reference, ' Pat.' 36, 

 Hen. 6, p. 1, m. 7). In 1462 (2 Edward IV.) he received a general 

 pardon from the crown, and was continued in his post as king's 

 Serjeant, and also ag justice of assize for the same circuit. On the 

 26th of April 1466 (6 Edward IV.), Littleton was appointed one of 

 the judges of the Court of Common Pleas, and rode the Northampton- 

 shire circuit. About the same time he obtained a writ, directed to 

 the commissioners of the customs for the ports of London, Bristol, 

 and Kingston-upon-Hull, for the annual payment of 110 marks, to 

 support his dignity, with 106. ll^d. to furnish him with a furred 

 robe, and 6*. 6rf. more for another robe, called ' linura.' In the 

 fifteenth year of the same he was created a knight of the order of 

 the Bath. Sir Thomas Littleton married Joan, widow of Sir Philip 

 Chetwin, of Ingestre, in the county of Stafford, one of the daughters 

 and co-heiresses of William Burley, of Broomscroft Castle, in the 

 county of Salop, Esq., with whom he had laree possessions. By her 

 he had three sons and two daughters: 1, William, ancestor of the 

 Lords Lyttelton, barons of Frankley, in the county of Worcester; 2, 

 Richard, to whom the ' Tenures ' are addressed, an eminent lawyer in 

 the reigng of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. ; 3, Thomas, from whom 

 were descended the Lord-Keeper Lyttelton, baron of Mounslow, in the 

 reii?n of Charles I., and Sir Thomas Lvttelton, Bart., Speaker of the 

 Il.iii.-e of Commons in the reign of William III. His two daughters, 

 named Ellen and Alice, both died unmarried. (Collins's ' Peerage,' 

 vol. vii., p. 424). 



Littleton died at Frankley on the 23rd of August 1481, aged about 

 sixty, and waa buried in Worcester Cathedral, where his tomb bore 

 the following inscription : " Hie jacet corpus Thome Littelton de 

 Frankley, Militia de Balneo, et unus Jnsticiarorum de Communi 

 Banco, qni obiit 23 August!, Ann. Dom. MCCCCLXXXI." 



In Collins's ' Peeraee ' there is a copy of Sir Thomas Littleton's 

 will, " faithfully copied from the original remaining in the Prerogative 

 Office." It contains some curious particulars ; but we can only make 

 room for the following extract from its commencement : 



" In the name of God, Amen. I, Thomas Lyttleton, Knight, oon 

 of King's justice of the common place, make my testament, and 

 notifie my wille, in the manner and forme that followeth. First, I 

 bequeth my soul to Almighty God, Fader, Sonne, and Hollye Ghost, 

 three Persons and oon God, and our Lorde, maker of heven and 

 erth, and of all the worlde ; and to our most blessed Lady and 

 Virgin, Saynt Mary, moder of our Lord and Jesu Christ, the only 

 begotten Sonne of our aide Lorde God, the Fader of heven, and to 

 Saint Christopher, the which our saide Lorde did truste to bere on 

 his fehouldres, and to all the saints of beveu; and my body to be 

 berried in the tombe I lete make for me on the south side of the body 

 of the cathedral! church of the monastere of our said blessed lady of 

 Worcester, under an image of St. Christopher, in caas if I die in Worces- 

 ter-hire. Also, I wtille, and specially desire, that immediately after my 

 decease, myn executors finde three gode preests for to Binge jjj treutals 

 for my soule, so that everich preest, by himself, sing oon trental, and 

 that everich such preest have right sufficiently for his labor; also, 

 that myn executors finde another gode preest for to singe for my 

 soule fyve masses," &c. He then makes a provision for his two 

 younger sons, willing that the "feoffees to myn use" of and in 

 certain manors and lordships should " make some estates " unto his 

 song Richard and Thomas Lyttelton. 



He appointed his three sons and " Sir Xtopher Goldstnyth, parson 

 of Bromsgrove, Sir Robert Cank, parson of Enfield, and Robert 

 Oxclyve," to be his executors. The will is dated at Frankley, 22nd 

 of August 14S1. being, as appears from the date of bis death on his 

 monument already quoted, the day preceding that of his death. 



.Sir Edward Coke has given it as his opinion that Littleton compiled 

 his book of 'Tenures' when he was judge, after the reign of King 

 Edward IV., but that it was not printed during his life ; that the first 

 impression was at Rouen, in France, by William de Taillier, 'ad 

 instantiam Richardi Pinson,' the printer of Henry VIII., and that it 

 was first printed about the twenty-fourth year of the reign of 

 H-nry VIII. In a note to the eleventh edition of Sir Edward Coke's 

 'Commentary,' it is remarked that this opinion is erroneous, because 

 it appeared by two copies in the bookseller's custody that the 'Tenures ' 

 were printed twice in London in the year 1528, once by Richard Pinson 

 and again by Robert Redmayne, and that was the nineteenth year of 

 the reign of Henry VIII. It is observed that, to determine with cer- 

 tainty when the Kohan or Rouen edition was published, is almost 

 impossible; but that from the old editions above mentioned it may be 

 collected; not only that the Rohan impression is older than the year 



1528, but also, by what occurs in the beginning and end of them, that 

 there had been other impressions of the book in question. However 

 it appears impossible, at this distance of time, to settle with accuracy 

 when the first edition of Littleton's work was printed. 



Littleton's work on English tenures is written in Norman French, 

 divided into three books, and addressed to his son, for whose use it 

 was probably intended. He says himself in the Tabula, in a note 

 following the list of chapters in the first two books, " And these two 

 little books I have made to thee for the better understanding of certain 

 chapters of the ' Antient Book of Tenures.' " And after the Table of 

 Contents of book iii. he thus concludes : 



" EPILOOUS. 



" And know, my son, that I would not have thee believe that al 

 which I have said in these books is law, for I will not presume to take 

 this upon me. But of those things that are not law, inquire and 

 learn of my wise masters learned in the law. Notwithstanding, albeit 

 that certain things which are moved and specified in the said books 

 are not altogether law, yet such things shall make thee more apt and 

 able to understand and apprehend the arguments and reasons of the 

 law, &c. For by the arguments and reasons in the law a man more 

 sooner shall come to the certainty and knowledge of the law. 

 " ' Lex plus laudatur quando ratione probatur." " 



The circumstance above referred to of this treatise having been 

 originally but a sort of introductory lesson " for the better under- 

 standing of certain chapters of the ' Antient Book of Tenures," " may 

 in part account for what has been often remarked respecting its defect 

 in the accurate division and logical arrangement of the subject matter. 

 The style however in which it is written is remarkably good. It 

 combines the qualities of clearness, plainness, and brevity, in a degree 

 that is not only extraordinary for the age in which its author wrote, 

 but renders him superior, as to purity of style, to any writer on 

 English law who has succeeded him. It is equally free from the 

 barbarous pedautry and quaintness of Coke, and from the occasionally 

 somewhat rhetorical manner of Blackstone. 



Littleton very seldom quotes any authority for what he advances : 

 indeed it was not the practice of the lawyers of his age to cite many 

 authorities, even in arguments and opinions delivered in court. 

 Littleton is a fair, or rather a favourable specimen of the mode in 

 which the English lawyers, often with great ncuteness and consistency, 

 followed out all the consequences that might be logically deduced 

 from certain principles or maxims, some of which maxims or premises 

 being irrational and absurd, necessarily led to irrational and absurd 

 conclusions. What with the alterations in and additions to the law 

 since Littleton wrote, there is much of Littleton's book that is not now 

 law ; but from the absolute necessity of a knowledge of what was the 

 state of the law with respect to property in land, in order to under- 

 stand thoroughly what it now is, Littleton -is still an indispensable 

 book to the student of English law. But we are inclined to be of the 

 following opinion, given in Roger North's ' Life of the Lord-Keeper 

 Guildford:' "Coke's comment upon Littleton ought not to be read 

 by students, to whom it is at least unprofitable ; for it is but a common- 

 place (book), and much more obscure than the bare text without it. 

 And, to say truth, that text needs it not; for it is so plain of itself, 

 that a comment, properly so called, doth but obscure it" (vol. i., p. 21). 

 Coke's 'Commentary on Littleton' was no other than a sort of common- 

 place book kept by Coke as a manual, in which he jotted down, all his 

 law and references to law as they occurred. 



To put this ' Commentary,' or rather common-place book, into a 

 student's hands to read as an institutional or elementary book, is 

 evidently futile ; and the doing so is probably the cause why so many 

 students of English law break down at the very threshold of their 

 career. The effect is, as North, or rather the Lord-Keeper Guildford, 

 observed, "like reading over a dictionary, which never teacheth a 

 language;" and therefore with him we may conclude that "certainly 

 it is an error for a student to peruse such." (North's ' Life of Lord- 

 Keeper Guildford,' vol. i., p. 21.) It is much better for the student 

 who wishes to lay well the foundations of his professional knowledge 

 to read Littleton without the comment (which of course he will find 

 useful afterwards, when he wishes to examine any particular point 

 very minutely) ; but then he must read slowly and carefully, and a 

 little at a time ; in short, very much as he would read Euclid, if he 

 wishes to master it. 



LIUTPRANDUS, or LUITPRANDU3, was a deacon at Pavia in 

 the year 946, when Berengarius, marquis of Ivrea, and regent of the 

 kingdom of Italy, sent him as his ambassador to Constantinople, where 

 he learned the Greek language. After his return he was made bishop 

 of Cremona. Otho I., emperor and king of Italy, sent him in 962 on 

 a mission to Pope John XII. ; and in the following year Luitprand 

 accompanied Otho to the council held at Rome, which deposed John 

 and chose Leo VIII. in his place. On that occasion Luitprand spoke 

 to the council in the name of the emperor, who did not understand 

 Latin, as he says in his ' Chronicle.' In 9B8 Otho sent him as amb^s- 

 sador to Nicephorus Phoc'is, emperor or usurper of Constantinople, 

 who treated him very scurvily, and kept him as a kind of prisoner. 

 After four months' residence in that capital, Luitprand left Coustanti- 

 nople in the month of October, to return to Italy. He died not long 

 after at Cremona, but the precise year of his death is not ascertained. 



