Author

The General Court of Massachusetts Bay (drafted chiefly by Nathaniel Ward)

About The General Court of Massachusetts Bay (drafted chiefly by Nathaniel Ward)

The Body of Liberties was adopted in 1641 by the General Court, the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Its main drafter was Nathaniel Ward (c. 1578–1652), a Puritan minister of Ipswich, Massachusetts, who had trained and practised as a lawyer in England before his ordination. John Cotton had prepared an earlier draft code that the Court did not adopt.

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The Massachusetts Body of Liberties

1641 · Renaissance Early Modern · Political Theory

The Body of Liberties is the first code of laws adopted in New England and one of the earliest bills of rights in the English-speaking world. The Puritan settlers of Massachusetts Bay had governed for a decade largely by the discretion of their magistrates.