The late Victorian period saw a significant rise in interest in historical and legal studies. Because modern law originated in medieval jurisprudence, and because it was an obscure field in clear need of study, there evolved a particular fascination with the medieval foundations of English law. It was appreciated and understood as an area of considerable intellectual and practical challenge. The evidence confirming and establishing the Victorian appetite for medieval manuscripts of a legal or quasi-legal character is abundant. It is well illustrated by the Domesday Celebration of 1886, an event which served to articulate Victorian attitudes to medieval public documents and instruments.

The celebration of the eight hundredth anniversary of the Domesday Book was the brainchild of the Royal Historical Society, and because of the quasilegal nature of the document, a number of eminent lawyers were involved from the very beginning. This prominent legal participation was so even though the learned institutions affiliated to the celebration covered every aspect of historical study, including the archaeological, architectural, literary, artistic and antiquarian. The celebration took the form of an exhibition of medieval documents of national interest and importance, including the two original volumes of the Domesday Book itself, with the chest, binding boards and tallies, and a series of lectures to be delivered in Lincoln's Inn Hall. The Committee also intended to publish a bibliography of all published works relating to the Domesday Book. It was hoped that these activities would encourage further research into the Domesday Book and related matters.

This interest in historical research found expression in a legal context in the founding of learned societies such as the Pipe Roll Society in 1884, and the Selden Society, founded in 1887 as a direct result of the Domesday Celebration of the previous year, and whose principal aims were the identification, cataloguing, translation, editing and publishing of medieval manuscript legal materials. The Law Quarterly Review began in 1885 and the penultimate year of Victoria's reign saw the beginning of the reprint of the English Reports.

There are two aspects to this intense activity in the field of early legal materials, the first of which is well documented. That is the resulting great works of legal history,4 both general and specific, and their effect on legal history as a subject of study in its own right.