In Memoriam

Robert Palmer

Bob Palmer (1947-2023), fully deserves the recognition of a tribute in these pages.  A devoted husband and father, he was also a unique and important contributor to the history of English law.  Always his own man, he never followed the crowd, and we are all in his debt because of that independence of mind and determination of spirit.

Born in Cottage Grove, Oregon, Bob first trained to become a monk, but ultimately decided to pursue a Ph.D. in medieval history under Donald Sutherland at the University of Iowa.  Having received that degree but with no formal training at a law school, he was obliged to subsist on what graduate fellowships were then available.  It was during the third of these, as a junior at the University of Michigan’s Society of Fellows, that he made an early foray into English legal history.  S. F. C. Milsom had challenged the widely accepted view, most famously developed by Maitland, that the early assizes were the product of conscious choice to shape and expand the scope of royal government.  Milsom argued that the new writs were simply attempts to make feudal law work as it was meant to.  No purposeful expansion was intended, and its far reaching results occurred as if by accident.  Bob praised this insight which had led to Milsom’s revision but added that more was needed because Milsom’s presentation was “almost impossible to understand.”  He sought to remedy that failing, and he argued that a fuller account of the writ of tolt, which was used to remove disputes from feudal courts to county courts was required to tell the full story.  That Bob supplied.

In the years that followed, Bob found a permanent position and a home in Texas. teaching at the University of Houston’s Law Center.  He published four monographs – each of them opening a door to our understanding of the history of the English common law.  Perhaps the most original of the four was English Law in the Age of the Black Death, 1348-1381: A Transformation of Governance and Law (1993).  Its theme was that loss of life caused by the plague inspired the government to act in new ways, primarily to preserve the existing social order.  The Statute of Labourers (1351) was one example; it sought to tie workers to their existing duties, and in so doing it transformed the ambition and the content of English law.  Expansion in the coverage of writs issued by the Chancery was another example.  The result was a basic change in English law’s coverage.

These achievements, impressive as they are, turned out to be a prelude to the lasting achievement of Bob’s professional career.  It was the creation of AALT (Anglo-American Legal Tradition), a photographed and digitized collection of virtually all English legal records from medieval and early modern times.  Where once a student of any subject requiring use of the plea rolls had to visit the National Archives in Kew, thanks to Palmer’s work the contents of the Plea Rolls are now available to anyone with access to the internet.  As Jonathan Rose stated, “it was a wonderful resource, which revolutionized research in the field.”  Bob’s work is now done.  Generations of legal historians will be grateful for his achievement.

(Richard Helmholtz)