2025/04/10 by A.J. Hannay, Alastair Hannay
Social Sciences · #Legal principles and applications #European and International Contract Law #Law in Society and Culture
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0008197325000224
Abstract The Damna Usuum was a series of complaints about the operation of uses written during the negotiations with the Commons which culminated in the Statute of Uses (1536). Through detailed analysis of the manuscript, this paper demonstrates that the Damna Usuum has been misunderstood by legal historians. Rather than being a public document intended to persuade the Commons to support reform; the Damna Usuum can be shown to be a series of rough notes prepared by the Crown’s lawyers ahead of their negotiations with the Commons. Furthermore, this has a significant impact on our understanding of how contemporary lawyers conceptualised pre-1536 uses in a period in which they had taken on more proprietary “thing-like” characteristics.