author
Anthony Fitzherbert
1470–1538
A Tudor judge and legal writer, this early English author helped turn complicated common law into books that working lawyers could actually use. He is also remembered for practical writing on farming and estate life, giving his work an unusually broad reach.
1 Audiobook
The Book of Husbandry
by Anthony Fitzherbert
About the author
Born at Norbury in Derbyshire around 1470, Sir Anthony Fitzherbert became one of the best-known legal writers of early Tudor England. He trained in the law, rose to become a justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1523, and built a strong reputation for fairness as well as learning.
His legal books made a lasting mark. He is especially associated with La Graunde Abridgement and New Natura Brevium, works that organized and explained English law in a way that made it more usable for practicing lawyers. That talent for clear, practical writing is a big part of why he is still remembered.
Fitzherbert also wrote about everyday rural life and land management, including The Boke of Husbandry and The Book of Surveying. Those books show a writer interested not only in courts and legal rules, but in how people managed farms, property, and work on the ground. Together, his writings give a vivid picture of law and life in early 16th-century England.