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The Bodleian

Law Library,

University of Oxford

A brief history

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An early mention: Domesday book, 1086

Oxeneford / juxta Oxeneford / juxta murum / Oxineford: King's land (royal borough), also various landholders and burgesses holding 243 dwellings.

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Alberico Gentili, Regius Professor of Civil Law

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The first Vinerian Chair of English Law, William Blackstone

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An original copy of Viner’s abridgment

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The modern degree phase 1 – 1850’s

• School of Law and Modern History subjects– real property, – Blackstone’s laws of the right of persons and

personal property, and – Justinian’s institutes

• The honours degree included – jurisprudence – the laws of England.

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The modern degree, phase 2 – 1876

• Bachelor in Jurisprudence – contract law– real property law – constitutional law – Jurisprudence– history of English law– Roman law – international law.

The advanced degree was the BCL - a full examination of 8 written papers and a viva.

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First University Library, 1320 – the Old Library in St Mary’s, the University church

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Duke Humfrey’s Library

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Site of the Bodleian Library and Radcliffe Square from the north, from Ralph Agas’s map of Oxford, 1578Gough Maps Oxon. 2

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Sir Thomas Bodley,by an unknownlate-sixteenth-century artistCollection: Bodleian Library, Poole 71

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The Bodleian Library and Schools Quadrangle from thesouth, from David Loggan, Oxonia Illustrata, 1675JJ Folder 2

The Divinity school Selden End and Convocation House

The Schools QuadArts End and Duke Humfrey’s

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The Bodleian LibraryRadcliffe Camera

St Mary’s Church

All Souls College & the Codrington Library

Brasenose college

Exeter College

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Inside the Codrington Library, All Souls College

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Earlier locations of the Law collection

The Exam Schools on High Street

The Lower Reading Room, Old Library

The Radcliffe Camera

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Oxford - the Law Library and the Bodleian Library 2010

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The Bodleian Law Library, Main Reading Room, 1964 & 2012

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Freshfields IT Room The EU reading room

The Graduate Reading Room and our Secondary collection….

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The Code of Federal Regulations

The United States Code Annotated – (all the superseded volumes…..)

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Rare books are housed in conservation boxes – for example, this vol. of

Statutes from Henry III to Henry VIII, published in 1543,

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Charles Viner’s signature and some of

his own annotations

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The old Bodleian ground floor stack collection was replaced by gleaming rolling stacks and the Official Papers collection found a new home.

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A link with the College of William and Mary

Print of the Bodleian Plate, depicting the colonial architecture of Williamsburg, Virginia. The plate, discovered in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, was critical to the reconstruction of Williamsburg in the early-mid 20th century.

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The Main Reading Room, BLL The interior of the University of

Chicago Law Library

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The future will be virtual and

physical for the Bodleian Law

Library