<P> Common law is a term with historical origins in the legal system of England . It denotes, in the first place, the judge - made law that developed from the early Middle Ages as described in a work published at the end of the 19th century, The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, in which Pollock and Maitland expanded the work of Coke (17th century) and Blackstone (18th century). Specifically, the law developed in England's Court of Common Pleas and other common law courts, which became also the law of the colonies settled initially under the crown of England or, later, of the United Kingdom, in North America and elsewhere; and this law as further developed after those courts in England were reorganised by the Supreme Court of Judicature Acts passed in the 1870s, and developed independently, in the legal systems of the United States and other jurisdictions, after their independence from the United Kingdom, before and after the 1870s . The term is used, in the second place, to denote the law developed by those courts, in the same periods (pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial), as distinct from within the jurisdiction, or former jurisdiction, of other courts in England: the Court of Chancery, the ecclesiastical courts, and the Admiralty court . </P> <P> In the Oxford English Dictionary (1933) "common law" is described as "The unwritten law of England, administered by the King's courts, which purports to be derived from ancient usage, and is embodied in the older commentaries and the reports of abridged cases", as opposed, in that sense, to statute law, and as distinguished from the equity administered by the Chancery and similar courts, and from other systems such as ecclesiasical law, and admiralty law . For usage in the United States the description is "the body of legal doctrine which is the foundation of the law administered in all states settled from England, and those formed by later settlement or division from them". </P> <P> Since 1189, English law has been described as a common law rather than a civil law system; in other words, no comprehensive codification of the law has taken place and judicial precedents are binding as opposed to persuasive . This may be a legacy of the Norman conquest of England, when a number of legal concepts and institutions from Norman law were introduced to England . In the early centuries of English common law, the justices and judges were responsible for adapting the system of writs to meet everyday needs, applying a mixture of precedent and common sense to build up a body of internally consistent law . An example is the Law Merchant derived from the "Pie - Powder" Courts, named from a corruption of the French pieds - poudrés ("dusty feet") implying ad hoc marketplace courts . As the Parliament of England became ever more established and influential, legislation gradually overtook judicial law - making such that today, judges are only able to innovate in certain very narrowly defined areas . </P> <P> In 1276, the concept of "time immemorial" often applied in common law was defined as being any time before 6 July 1189 (i.e. before Richard I's accession to the English throne). </P>

When was the emergence of the english court system