Definition
Leges Anglie (also rendered Leges Angliae) is a Latin phrase meaning "the laws of England." Used historically in legal writing and scholarship, the phrase functioned as a collective designation for the entire body of English law, understood as a distinct and coherent legal system separate from Roman civil law and other continental systems. The phrase appears most frequently in maxims and formal legal discourse where writers sought to characterize the nature, sources, or supremacy of English law as a whole.
The term carries an important embedded taxonomy. The classic formulation preserved in Black's — Leges Angliae sunt tripartitae, jus commune, consuetudines, ac decreta comitiorum — divides the laws of England into three components: the common law, local customs, and the decrees of Parliament. This tripartite structure reflects the traditional understanding of English legal sources as they were organized by medieval and early modern jurists, and it anticipates the more developed source-of-law analyses that would appear in later treatises, including Blackstone's Commentaries.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this phrase in historical sources should treat it as a signal that the writer is making a structural or comparative claim about English law as a system, not merely referencing a specific rule or doctrine. The phrase tends to appear in three contexts: (1) maxims asserting the independence or sufficiency of English law against Roman law influence; (2) formal prefaces or preambles to treatises situating English law within a broader jurisprudential framework; and (3) arguments about the sources and hierarchy of legal authority in England.
The companion maxim — Leges figendi et refigendi consuetudo est periculosissima, meaning "the practice of making and remaking the laws is most dangerous" — often appears alongside Leges Anglie in the same sources. Researchers should note that this second maxim expresses a conservative legal philosophy favoring settled law over frequent legislative revision. When the two maxims appear together, the source is typically advancing an argument about legal stability and the dangers of legislative overreach, a theme prominent in early common law thought and in the resistance of common lawyers to Stuart prerogative claims.
The tripartite division embedded in the primary maxim (common law, customs, decrees of Parliament) is historically significant for source-of-law research. It reflects a pre-modern understanding in which parliamentary legislation was listed last and treated as one source among several, not as the supreme or dominant source. This contrasts sharply with the modern doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. Researchers tracing the development of legislative supremacy should mark this framing as evidence of an earlier and fundamentally different conceptual hierarchy.
Because the phrase is Latin and appears primarily in treatises, law French commentary, and learned legal argument, it is largely absent from case reports and statutes. It will surface most in manuscript sources, early printed treatises, and legal dictionaries up through the nineteenth century. Modern legal databases will return few results; the productive search territory is digitized early modern legal literature and Latin legal maxim collections.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary is the primary dictionary source for this entry and provides two distinct pieces of content: a translation of the phrase itself and two associated maxims with their translations. Black's presents the tripartite maxim without attribution to a specific treatise, which is characteristic of how Latin legal maxims were handled in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century legal dictionaries — treated as received wisdom rather than sourced propositions. The truncated presentation of the second maxim in the available text (ending mid-sentence) suggests the full entry contains additional material; researchers using Black's should consult the full printed entry rather than relying on excerpts.
No other dictionary sources were provided for this entry. The phrase does not appear to have generated substantial independent treatment in English-language legal dictionaries beyond its inclusion as a maxim vehicle. Its significance lies less in its definition — which is simply "the laws of England" — and more in the analytical framework the associated maxims encode. That framework is better developed in treatise literature than in dictionary entries.
Jurisdictional Note
Leges Anglie as a phrase and concept applies to English law specifically, not to Scottish law, Irish law, or the laws of other jurisdictions within the British Isles. Researchers working with sources touching on Scotland or Ireland should be alert to the jurisdictional precision the phrase implies; its use signals a claim about English common law in particular, not British law generally.