Odger's English Common Law

Chapter VIII.
THE SOURCES OF THE LAW OF ENGLAND.
The amount of English law is something appalling. It is a
megatherion of colossal bulk. More than fifty different
systems of law are administered in the British Empire, very
few of which have any pretence to a code. It would be
interesting to trace the history of each of these systems and
to contrast its provisions with those of the others. In this
work, however, we must confine our attention to the law
which is in force in England and Wales.
From what sources is this law derived ?
The law of England is largely derived from antecedent
custom. We have already defined customary law as that
portion of the law of any State which happens to have been
custom before it was made law. Whether these ancient
customs could properly be styled " laws " before they were
accepted as law in our Law Courts is a moot point on which
theorists differ. But to us in the present day no custom (or
at all events no general custom 1
) has the force of law, unless
we can find some record of it in some statute or ordinance, or
in the decisions of our tribunals, or in some standard text-
book of long- established authority.
When the Angles, Jutes and Saxons landed on our shores,
there was no doubt in England a mass of British customs,
still with a veneer of Koman law. These disappeared before
the advance of the heathen invaders; the Britons were
gradually driven into Wales and Damnonia and carried their
law and customs with them. The place of these was taken
by a variety of Teutonic usages, which were supplemented by
others of a somewhat different character at a later date when
1 As to local custom?, see post, pp. 76—86.