The Common Lawyers of Pre-Reformation England - E. W. (University of Birmingham) Ives - Bog

The English common lawyers wielded their greatest influence in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. In these years they were more than the only organized lay profession: in the infancy of statute, they, more than anyone, shaped and changed the law; they were the managerial elite of the country; they were the single most dynamic group in society.