Black Book,

Black Book, an interesting collection of English Admiralty Law in the 14th century, first edited by Sir Travers Twiss (4 vols. 1871-76). It indicates the pretensions of the civil law as regards trial without jury, torture, &c., which afterwards led to legislation in vindication of the position of the Common Law courts.—BLACK BOOK is also a usual term for the reports presented to parliament in 1536, on which the legislation for the dissolution of the monasteries and the secularising of their revenues proceeded. These reports probably never existed as a book (fabled to have been burnt in Queen Mary's reign); such of them as remain are to a large extent extravagant and malicious accusations without any evidence (see Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII., edited by James Gairdner, vol. x. 1888; F. A. Gasquet, Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries (2 vols. 1888-89).—A list of habitual criminals, first published in 1877, has been also so called.