Thomas J. McSweeney

In 1999, Professor Richard Helmholz published Magna Carta and the Ius Commune, in which he argued that some of the ideas and language found in Magna Carta provide evidence that the early common law was engaging with the ius commune, the ancestor of modern civil law traditions. This Essay argues that Magna Carta does not provide conclusive evidence whether contemporaries were thinking about Roman and canon law when reforming the common law.