Hardly delusory, and you used weasel words in your assertion to avoid acknowledging the fact. To this day there is no written codified version of English Common Law. The first attempt at recording a unified body of precedent throughout the kingdoms happened only a few hundred years after the first Christian missionaries came to the British Isles, somewhere around the 11th century. Before the Common Law unification, it was practiced throughout the isles with only minor local variation between regions well into pre-history. The first attempts at codifying and centralizing legal procedure happened in the 12th century, but is known to have existed in essentially its current form at least several hundred years before the first Christian missionaries showed up in the region.
The exact origins of English Common Law are unknown primarily because it existed long before written histories of the region existed in any meaningful sense. The Christian missionaries (from which we get much of our early recorded history of the region) clearly indicate it was a strong and old institution when they showed up. The Normans, which didn't show up until a good four hundred years after the missionaries showed up, were the first to make a concerted effort to create a thorough written record of this ancient legal tradition.
So Nebullis, are you actually going to assert that English Common Law didn't exist before the Norman invaders made the first comprehensive written documentation of it? Did the English language not exist before the first dictionary? Most of what we know about ancient England is invaders and other people wrote about it. There is no written record of anybody invading or visiting the islands before English Common Law was an ancient institution there. Thanks for playing, but try again.
Precisely. But, since we know that Christianity spread to Great Britain long before such written histories, only wishful thinking will ignore its influence on development of English Common Law, especially in areas already codified in the Septuagint.
Before the Common Law unification, it was practiced throughout the isles with only minor local variation between regions well into pre-history.
There was actually considerable regional variation in practice.
The first attempts at codifying and centralizing legal procedure happened in the 12th century, but is known to have existed in essentially its current form at least several hundred years before the first Christian missionaries showed up in the region.
The first attempt at recording can be found in the Mercian Register (Cotton Tiberius) from the early part of the 9th century. And Christianity had more than a 500 year presence in Great Britain by that time, brought there by the Romans, esp. Constantine.
English Common Law, ancient and variable in origin, was influenced in its practice and evolution by all that constituted English history by the time it was first codified in the 11th century, including Northern European and Roman (Christian).
It wouldn't be surprising if all ancient cultures, by reason of the obvious physical presence of fetal movement around the 4th month, had a common treatment or definition of the fetus after quickening. But the judicial or ecclesiastical treatment of the fetus would differ between cultures. As the ancient Near East cultures had a codified record of treatment of the fetus as an individual with a soul, and, as Christianity dispersed this ancient record with the spread of Christianity, and, as Christianity was brought to England almost 1000 years before English Common Law was codified, it cannot be ignored that the ruling of homicide for a fetus after quickening was influenced by Christianity.