Laws of Æthelberht,
King of Kent, from around 600 A.D.
(These are the earliest English laws,
written in Anglo-Saxon, or Old English. Mostly they appear to be
a documentation of customary or oral law, and were therefore not
legislation in the modern sense. The writing of the laws seems to
have happened soon after the king converted to Christianity and was
introduced to the practice of writing by Augustine and the monks who
accompanied him. This file contains a sampling of the laws in
Anglo-Saxon, along with a modern English translation)
Hunting Decree
in the form of a writ,
William
I (the Conqueror)
(Made between 1070 and 1088.
Modern enacted statutes do not yet appear in England. Most of
William's
writs were in Latin only. A few, like this one, were in
Anglo-Saxon
or Old English, perhaps to emphasize that--although he had conquered
England
and spoke French--he considered himself the legitimate heir of the
Anglo-Saxon
kings)
Statute of Marlborough
(1267)
(This appears to be the oldest English statute that
is still (partially) in force today. It might be the oldest
statute that is in force anywhere in the world. If you have other
candidates, please email me. I am not including religious laws
like the Ten Commandments)
Treason Act
(1351)
(This act is also still in force
today
in England.
Note the broad definition of treason, which includes simply "imagining"
the king's death. The act as presented is in English translation and
includes
only the part still in force; the original included many other acts,
like
counterfeiting the coinage of the realm. As to the penalty, see
the
movie Braveheart. I have added the original law French version.)
Statute of
Pleading (1362)
(Required use of English in court
pleading, noting that French is much unknown in the realm. Nonetheless,
lawyers continued to use French intermittently for another three
centuries)
Early Arms Control Act (1383)
Treason Act
(1495)
(Around the time of Henry VII,
statutes--like
this one enacted in the 11th year of his reign--appear in English
rather
than Law French)
An Act agaynst wearing of costly Apparrell (1509)
An Acte for Lawes
& Justice to be ministered
in Wales in like fourme as it is in this Realme (1535)
(Henry VIII benevolently extends to
Wales the laws of England, relieving the Welsh of their "senister
usages
and customes", and noting that their "speche [is] ne consonant to the
naturall
mother tonge used within this Realme")
An
Ordinance
for the better observation of the Lords-Day (1644)
(A Puritan statute passed during
the
Commonwealth. Besides requiring observance of the Sabbath, it
forbade
maypoles, which the Puritans felt were heathen.)
An Act for
turning the Books of the Law, and all Proces and Proceedings in Courts
of Justice, into English (1650)
(Another Puritan statute; note that
it provided a reward to those who sued to enforce the law. It was
repealed after the monarchy was restored)
Statute of Frauds:
text
(1677); an original printing:
photo1 photo2
photo3 photo4
photo5
(This famous statute requires that
various legal transactions be in writing or evidenced by a
writing.
It contains several provisions relating to wills that are still in
effect,
in virtually the same terms, today in the United States)
The infamous British Tea
Act of 1773
(This was one of the causes of the American
Revolution and led directly to the Boston Tea Party)
Welsh Language Act
(1993)
(This act sets up a
board
to promote the use of the Welsh language in public and requires public
bodies dealing with Welsh speakers to establish a scheme to put Welsh
and
English on an equal footing. The act (beginning in section 22)
allows
Welsh to be used in legal proceedings. The act repeals
legislation
of Henry VIII in the sixteenth century that (re)incorporated Wales into
England and the English legal system)
AMERICAN STATUTES
Act to Abolish Death Penalty, Maine, 1874
(photo)
(This was apparently a legislator's copy, who
kept track of the votes on the bottom of the page; it lost)
Some state statutes requiring plain English in certain classes of consumer documents (including the original New York law)
Various American state statutes declaring
English the official
language of the state.
(This file is a few years old
and
might be a bit out of date. The Arizona statute was ruled
unconstitutional
in the Ruiz case, posted elsewhere on this site)
The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998
Congressional
Resolution Authorizing Use Of Military Force Against Iraq (2002)
(It is generally accepted that a statute
cannot be true or false. But notice that the various propositions
in the "whereas" clauses are clearly factual, and many of them are
certainly false (Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, was harboring
members of Al Qaida, etc.)