Littleton's treatise was written in that peculiar dialect compounded of Norman-French and English phrases called law French. Although it had been provided by a statute of 36 Edward III. that _viva voce_ proceedings in court should no longer be conducted in the French tongue, "which was much unknown in the realm," the practice of reporting proceedings in that language, and of using it in legal treatises, lingered till a much later period, and was at length prohibited by a statute passed in the time of the Commonwealth in 1650. Unlike the preceding writers on English law, Glanville, Bracton and the authors of the treatises known by the names of Britton and Fleta, Littleton borrows nothing from the sources of Roman law or the commentators. He deals exclusively with English law.

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