Recent Book: Not Just Yodelling: Cities with Little Crime: The Case of Switzerland
| Published date | 01 October 1979 |
| Date | 01 October 1979 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X7905200417 |
| Author | Daniel P. King |
| Subject Matter | Recent Book |
IN
THE
DAYS OF TITHINGS
PROFESSOR
GEORGE
W.
KEETON.
Harvey the Hasty: A Medieval ChiefJustice.
Barry Rose. £14 50
This is a peculiar, very interesting and,
in places, very detailed account of the
work of the judiciary nearly seven
hundred years ago.
It
is interesting because it deals not
only with the development of the law in
those days but also with the effect upon
that development of the politics of the
time, including the conflicts between the
interests of the King and those of the
Barons and Bishops and between the
interests of the Barons and Bishops and
those of ordinary people.
Professor Keeton has also some very
interesting observations about the
medieval City of London and in
particular the early City Guilds seen, in a
sense, through the eyes of the King's
Justices, who had to deal with countless
problems
arising
from
Charters.
franchises. claims of privilege and
customary rights.
The book is peculiar because Professor
Keeton has chosen to deal with some
detailed legal history in a work which
follows the career of Harvey the Hasty, in
reality Harvey de Staunton, whose
nickname seems to have been justified
only by his ability to get through
prodigious amounts of work in various
parts of the country. Perhaps. in this
way, the author was seeking to find a
readership beyond the ranks of the legal
historians in which case the method
adopted is not very successful. There are
many examples in the text of arguments
put forward by Counsel in Courts in
which Staunton was sitting and of the
replies of the judges to those arguments.
which illustrate points of importance in
the Common Law of the time but these
will mean little to readers other than
lawyers, only those whose subject is legal
history or whose examinations are not
long behind them. will be very much
wiser than the laymen. It would have
been better to have a straight forward
text book for the student of legal history
or a biography of a medieval judge with
much
more
explanation
of
the
significance of the points involved for the
benefit of the uninitiated.
x.c, STAPLES
FRIENDS?
Edited by
ROMAN
TOMASIC.
Lawyers and the Community
Allen and Unwin £5.95
This
companion
volume
of
"Understanding Lawyers" is much more
specialised and represents the result of
servicecarriedout bythe Law Foundation
of New South Wales.
It
is unlikely to
appeal to all but the most avid readers of
legal affairs but would clearly be usefulto
lawyers and government administrators
concerned with the future administration
of legal services. Again, as in our own
case, there is concern as to whether legal
services are keeping pace with public
demands and values. The attitudes of
various sections of the community
towards the legal services come in for
very close scrutiny and there are
many tables setting out the results of
surveys which are likely to be of
considerable interest to those who are
presently researching into similar areas
in this country. They make interesting
and useful material for comparison. It is
not surprising that most people polled
thought that crime was much worse than
it used to be and that the best method of
reducing it would be the severity of
punishment. The only group of people
polled to show less than 50% agreement
with the latter solution were those
between 14 and 24years ofage. There isa
good deal of interesting information of
this and other kinds concerning the work
of the police as well as that of solicitors
and inaddition anexcellent bibliography
of some 20 pages has been carefully
prepared and would be of great value to
anybody embarking on studies of this
kind. J.C. ALDERSON
NOT
JUST
YODELLING
MARSHALL
B.
CLINARD.
Cities With Lillie Crime: The Case
of
Switzerland.
New York and "London: Cambridge University Press, 1978. 208pp. $13.50.
This is a comprehensive study of crime countries and the United States. In spite
in Switzerland with a comparison with of Switzerland's position as a highly,
similar crime patterns in other European developed, affluent, industrialized and
October 1979 407
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