CD: Judicial and Testamentary Business of the Provincial Court [Maryland], 1637-1650

"The Provincial Court at St. Mary's, Maryland was the chief judicial body in the Province being not only a court of first instance for all matters civil, criminal, and testamentary for the city and county of St. Mary's, but having also appellate jurisdiction over the county courts. It was composed, during the years embraced in this volume, of the Governor as presiding judge, and one or more of the members of the Council as associate judges. In the absence of the Governor, the councillor next in commission presided. The judges were sworn to give judgment according to the laws of the Province, and were disabled from sitting in cases in which they were personally interested. During these years the Province was so sparsely settled, that we are justified in surmising that nearly all the judicial business was brought, in one form or another, before the Provincial Court…there is much in (the records) worthy of attention by students of Maryland's early history and institutions, who may here note how laws and principles of law that had grown up under very different conditions were adapted without violence to the needs of the infant colony…One feature that cannot be overlooked is the singular absence of crimes of violence."

William Hand Browne

(1896), 2007, CD-ROM, Graphic Images, Searchable, Adobe Acrobat v6, 577 pp.

ISBN: 9780788445064

101-CD4506