The Online Library of Liberty

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• Acknowledgments and Dedicatory
• A Note On the Texts, Editions, and Translations
• Introduction
• Chronology of Events
• Editions of Coke’s Works
• Mottoes and Crests of Sir Edward Coke
• I: Reports
• Part One of the Reports
• The Preface to the Reader.
• Shelley’s Case.
• Part Two of the Reports
• (preface) to the Learned Reader.
• Manser’s Case.
• The Case of Bankrupts.
• |[46 A] the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Case. *
• Part Three of the Reports
• (preface) to the Reader.
• Heydon’s Case.
• Fermor’s Case.
• Part Four of the Reports
• (preface) to the Reader.
• The Lord Cromwell’s Case. *
• Cutler V. Dixon.
• Vaux’s Case.
• Slade’s Case.
• Part Five of the Reports
• (preface) to the Reader.
• Foster’s Case.
• Cases of By-laws and Ordinances the Chamberlain of London’s Case.
• Clark’s Case.
• The Case of Market-overt.
• Semayne’s Case.
• Rooke’s Case.
• Pinnel’s Case.
• |[125 A] the Case De Libellis Famosis.
• Part Six of the Reports
• (preface) to the Reader.
• Jentleman’s Case.
• Part Seven of the Reports
• (preface) Deo, Patriae, Tibi. 2
• Calvin’s Case, Or the Case of the Postnati. 1
• The Case of Swans.
• Penal Statutes.
• Part Eight of the Reports
• (preface) Deo, Patriae, Tibi. 3
• Vynior’s Case. *
• Dr. Bonham’s Case.
• The Case of Thetford School, &c.
• Part Nine of the Reports
• (preface) Deo, Patriae, Tibi. 3
• William Aldred’s Case.
• John Lamb’s Case.
• Mackalley’s Case. (in the Killing of the Sergeant of London.)
• Part Ten of the Reports
• (preface) Deo, Patriae, Tibi. 5
• The Case of Sutton’s Hospital.
• The Case of the Isle of Ely.
• Part Eleven of the Reports
• (preface) Deo, Patriae, Tibi. 4
• The Lord De La Warre’s Case.
• The Case of the Tailors of Habits &c. of Ipswich.
• The Case of Monopolies.
• James Bagg’s Case.
• Part Twelve of the Reports
• Ford and Sheldon’s Case.
• Case of Non Obstante, Or Dispensing Power.
• Q. If High Commissioners Have Power to Imprison.
• Floyd and Barker.
• Of Oaths Before an Ecclesiasticall Judge Ex Officio.
• Of Pardons.
• Customs, Subsidies, and Impositions.
• Buggery. 1
• Premunire.
• Nicholas Fuller’s Case.
• Sir Anthony Roper’s Case.
• Sir Anthony Roper’s Case.
• The Case of Heresy.
• Langdale’s Case.
• Mouse’s Case.
• Prohibitions Del Roy.
• The Lord Aburgaveney’s Case.
• Of Convocations.
• Proclamations.
• Thomlinson’s Case.
• Walter Chute’s Case.
• Sir Stephen Procter’s [proctor’s] Case.
• Exaction of Benevolence.
• Part Thirteen of the Reports
• (preface) to the Reader.
• Prohibitions.
• The Case De Modo Decimandi, 1 and of Prohibitions, Debated Before the Kings Majesty.

The Case of Market-Overt.

(1596) Hilary Term, 38 Elizabeth I In the Court of Quarter Sessions.

First Published in the Reports, volume 5, page 83b.

Ed.: This note case presents a holding of the judges of various courts that stolen goods that are sold by a merchant whose trade is generally in the type of goods sold can create good title in a bona fide purchaser, although a sale made after the goods were hidden in a shop or traded in a warehouse would not create good title in the seller. Coke, as Recorder of London, testified to the city custom along these lines.

At the sessions of Newgate now last past, it was resolved by Popham, Chief Justice of England, Anderson, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Sir Thomas Egerton, Master of the Rolls, the Attorney General, and the Court, That if Plate be stolen and sold openly in a Scriveners shop on the Market day (as every day is a Market day in London except the Sunday) that this sale shall not change the property, but the party shall have restitution; for a Scriveners shop is not a Market overt for plate: for none will search there for such thing; & sic de similibus, &c.1 But if the sale had been openly in a Goldsmith’s shop in London, so that any one that stood or passed by the shop might see it, there it changeth the property. But if the sale be in the shop of a Goldsmith, or behinde a hanging, or behinde a Cupboard upon which his Plate standeth, so that one that stood or passed by the shop cannot see it, it shall not change the property: So if the sale be not in shop, but in the Ware-house, or other place of the house, it shall not change the property, for that is not in Market overt, and none will search there for his goods. So every shop in London is an open market for such things onely which by the trade of the owner are put there to sale; And when I was Recorder of London, I certified the Custome of London accordingly. Note, Reader, the reason of this case extends to all open Markets in England.

[1. ][Ed.: and likewise concerning similar things, etc.]