Talk:Thomas de Littleton

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"the spirit of Norman feudalism than that a tenant of lands should dispose of them by will, we find Littleton directing by his will the feoffees of certain manors to make estates to the persons named in his will. In other words, in order to acquire over lands powers unknown to the common law, the lands had been conveyed to feoffees” who had full right over them according to the common law, but who were under a conscientious obligation to exercise those rights at the direction and for the exclusive benefit of the person to whose “ use” the lands were held. This conscientious obligation was recognized and enforced by the chancellor, and thus arose the class of equitable interests in lands. Littleton is the first writer on English law after these rights had risen into a prominent position, and it is curious to find to what extent they are ignored by him."

This text was at the end of the Brittanica article - I could not translate it, if anyone achieves understanding add it to the very end of the Brittanica.--OldakQuill 10:37, 3 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

It's referring to the precurser to today's trusts. Littletons left some land to some feoffees (trustees) who would own the legal title to the land but were to control the land for the use of the beneficiaries. The Brittanica author is noting that while Littleton was certainly aware of this developing area of law, it's surprising that he didn't include any mention of it in his text. It's probably not worth putting it back in the article really. Lisiate 22:11, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Why is "Sir" part of the article's name? This is not the convention I've seen on Wikipedia. RedWolf 01:43, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

You are correct and I have fixed it!--Samuel J. Howard 01:53, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

How can one change the note at the end of this article about its incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica? I want the note to be clearer, stating that, at the moment, the bulk of this article is based wholly (or almost wholly) on the Britannica but that it is not entirely a verbatim transcript. That should be done so that nobody accidentally uses the Wikipedia article, making a verbatim quote of part of the Wiki text, and then saying that the verbatim quote is directly from Britannica—because it may well not be verbatim Britannica stuff anymore, now that edits have been made to the Wikipedia version. President Lethe 14:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]