Common law
The common lawso named because it was "common" to all the king's courts across Englandoriginated in the practices of the courts of the English kings in the centuries following the Norman Conquest in 1066. Prior to the Norman Conquest, much of England's legal business took place in the local folk courts of its various shires and hundreds. A variety of other individual courts also existed across the land: urban boroughs and merchant fairs held their own courts, as did the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and large landholders also held their own manorial and seigniorial courts as needed. Additionally, the Catholic Church operated its own court system that adjudicated issues of canon law.
Uncommon Law
Uncommon Law is a book by A. P. Herbert first published by Methuen in 1935. Its title is a satirical reference to the English common law. The book is an anthology of fictitious law reports first published in "Punch" as Misleading Cases in which Herbert explores, as he saw it, rather absurd aspects of the law, and upholds his civil liberties with the protagonist Albert Haddock, representing Herbert's point of view, taking many to court. It includes perhaps the best-known of these cases, "The Negotiable Cow". Herbert himself said "Albert Haddock made his first public appearance, in "Punch", in 1924. I have always understood that I invented him: but he has made some disturbing escapes into real life".