The Origin Of The Common Law.
Prior to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, there was no unitary, national legal system.
Before 1066 the English legal system involved a mass of oral customary rules, which varied according to region.
The law of the Jutes in the south of England, for example, was different from that of the Mercians in the middle of the country (see map below). Each county had its own local court dispensing its own justice in accordance with local customs that varied from community to community and were enforced in often arbitrary fashion.
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