A Law Dictionary

A later printing of this controversial English legal dictionary drawing on both common and civil law, first published in 1607 as The interpreter: or booke containing the signification of words.

The compiler John Cowell (1554-1611) was Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Cambridge from 1594 to 1611, and master of Trinity Hall, the stronghold of civil law studies at Cambridge, from 1598 until 1611.

'The controversy arose from Cowell's definition of a few terms that reflected a theory of royal absolutism, which was at the time often associated with the civil law. Cowell defined a king as having absolute power above the law, with parliament serving the monarchy. The book caused an uproar in the parliament of 1610, which was marked by a general fear of royal absolutism. MPs complained that Cowell had drawn his arguments from the imperial laws of the Roman emperors... It also angered common lawyers, who objected to Cowell's defence of the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical and admiralty courts.

Sir Edward Coke, chief justice of the common pleas, who called Cowell 'Dr Cowheel', also resented his derogatory comments regarding Sir Thomas Littleton, whose work on tenures served as Coke's main authority for the first volume of his Institutes. The protests caused James I to summon Cowell before him in the privy council and suppress the book by proclamation, claiming that it was "in some points very derogatory to the supreme power of this crowne; in other cases mistaking the true state of the parliament of this kingdome... and speaking unreverently of the common law of England"(J. F. Larkin and P. L. Hughes, eds., Stuart Royal Proclamations, 1973, 1.244). Although James was privately sympathetic to Cowell and agreed with most of his political ideas, he used his prerogative power to diffuse some of the fury in the Commons and to prevent any further discussion of the book.

The Interpreter continued to cause controversy in the parliament of 1621. Despite its suppression, the book proved to have considerable utility and was reprinted eleven times during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Cowell was disgraced by the royal condemnation of his work and retired from public life, resigning as professor of civil law on 25th May 1611. He died at Cambridge on 11th October and was buried in Trinity Hall. Having never married, Cowell gave his lands in Devon to his brother and his nephew, John Allen and Simon Cowell, while he bequeathed his house at Cambridge to Trinity Hall to support a lecture in logic. His books on civil and canon law were given to Trinity Hall's library' (ODNB).

Folio in 4s (28.5 x 18.5 cm); shaved close to fore-edge with loss to text for 4ff of quire Z, title-page mounted and with some dampstaining, text-block slightly toned; contemporary calf boards, rebacked, rubbed with slight loss to corners, covers slightly abraded; [352]pp.

ESTC T132902.