Statutesat Large

Statutes at Large, an authentic collection of the various statutes which have been passed by the British Parliament from very early times up to the present day. The oldest of these now extant and printed in our Statute Book is the famous Magna Charta as confirmed in Parliament, 9 Henry III., though doubtless there were many Acts before that time, the records of which are now lost, and the provisions of which are in the present day currently received for the maxims of the old Common Law or customs of the realm. The statutes from Magna Charta down to the reign of Edward II. (including also some which, because it is doubtful to which of the three reigns of Henry IlI., Edward I., or Edward II. to assign them, are termed incerti temporis) compose what have been called the vetera statuta; on the other hand, those from the beginning of the reign of Edward III. are contradistinguished by the appellation of the nova statuta (Dwarris on Stat. (26).