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As a genre of law which is based on custom, tradition, and/or precedent, common law is a historical background of the means towards a harmony and cooperation between human beings who have learned to live according to laws or norms.

• Common law as opposed to statutory law and regulatory law. The first connotation concerns the authority that promulgated a particular proposition of law. For example, in most areas of law in most jurisdictions in the United States, there are "statutes" enacted by a legislature, "regulations" promulgated by executive branch agencies pursuant to a delegation of rule-making authority from a legislature, and "common law" decisions issued by courts (or quasi-judicial tribunals within agencies). This first connotation can be further differentiated, into (a) laws that arise purely from the common law without express statutory authority, for example, most of the criminal law, contract law, and procedural law before the twentieth century, and (b) decisions that discuss and decide the fine boundaries and distinctions in statutes and regulations.

• Common law as opposed to civil law. The second connotation differentiates "common law" jurisdictions (most of which descend from the English legal system) that place great weight on such common law decisions, from "civil law " or "code" jurisdictions (many of which descend from the Napoleonic code in which the weight accorded judicial precedent is much less).

• Common law as opposed to equity. The third differentiates "common law" (or just "law") from "equity." Before 1873, England had two parallel court systems, courts of "law" that could only award money damages and recognized only the legal owner of property, and courts of "equity" that recognized trusts of property and could issue injunctions (orders to do or stop doing something). Although the separate courts were merged long ago in most jurisdictions, or at least all courts were permitted to apply both law and equity (though under potentially different laws of procedure), the distinction between law and equity remains important in (a) categorizing and prioritizing rights to property, (b) determining whether the Seventh Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial applies (a determination of a fact necessary to resolution of a "law" claim) or whether the issue can only be decided by a judge (issues of equity), and (c) in the principles that apply to the grant of equitable remedies by the courts.

Common law originally developed under the inquisitorial system in England from judicial decisions that were based in tradition, custom, and precedent. Such forms of legal institutions and culture bear resemblance to those which existed historically in continental Europe and other societies where precedent and custom have at times played a substantial role in the legal process, including Germanic law recorded in Roman historical chronicles. The form of reasoning used in common law is known as casuistry or case-based reasoning.

The common law, as applied in civil cases (as distinct from criminal cases), was devised as a means of compensating someone for wrongful acts known as torts, including both intentional torts and torts caused by negligence, and as developing the body of law recognizing and regulating contracts. The type of procedure practiced in common law courts is known as the adversarial system; this is also a development of the common law.

Before the institutional stability imposed on England by William the Conqueror in 1066, English residents, like those of many other societies, particularly the Germanic cultures of continental Europe, were governed by unwritten local customs that varied from community to community and were enforced in often arbitrary fashion. For example, courts generally consisted of informal public assemblies that weighed conflicting claims in a case and, if unable to reach a decision, might require an accused to test guilt or innocence by carrying a red-hot iron or snatching a stone from a cauldron of boiling water or some other "test" of veracity (trial by ordeal). If the defendant's wound healed within a prescribed period, he was set free as innocent; if not, execution usually followed.

In 1154, Henry II became the first Plantagenet king. Among many achievements, Henry institutionalized common law by creating a unified system of law "common" to the country through incorporating and elevating local custom to the national, ending local control and peculiarities, eliminating arbitrary remedies, and reinstating a jury system of citizens sworn on oath to investigate reliable criminal accusations and civil claims. The jury reached its verdict through evaluating common local knowledge, not necessarily through the presentation of evidence, a distinguishing factor from today's civil and criminal court systems.

Henry II developed the practice of sending judges from his own central court to hear the various diputes throughout the country. His judges would resolve disputes on an ad hoc basis according to what they interpreted the customs to be. The king's judges would then return to London and often discuss their cases and the decisions they made with the other judges. These decisions would be recorded and filed. In time, a rule, known as stare decisis (also commonly known as precedent) developed, which is where a judge would be bound to follow the decision of an earlier judge; he was required to adopt the earlier judge's interpretation of the law and apply the same principles promulgated by that earlier judge, that is, if the two cases had similar facts to one another. By this system of precedent, decisions 'stuck' and became ossified, and so the pre-Norman system of disparate local customs was replaced by an elaborate and consistent system of laws that was common throughout the whole country, hence the name, 'common law'.

Henry II's creation of a powerful and unified court system, which curbed somewhat the power of canonical (church) courts, brought him (and England) into conflict with the church, most famously, with Thomas Becket. the Archbishop of Canterbury. Things were resolved eventually, at least for a time, in Henry's favor when four of his knights, hoping to curry favor with him, murdered Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. For its part, the Church soon canonized Becket as a saint .

Thus, in English legal history, judicially-developed "common law" became the uniform authority throughout the realm several centuries before Parliament acquired the power to make laws.

What makes the common law so fascinating, compared to Parliamentary law (aka statute or legislation), is that while parliamentary laws are written in a definitive, distinct, formal, and accessible document, known as an Act of Parliament, common laws in contrast are not strictly written definitively anywhere. Thus, to identify a rule of the common law one must review the various relevant decisions of judges and interpret their judgments, which can often be long and ambiguous. Fortunately, there are a host of excellent legal text books written by experts which explain in clear terms what the common law is understood to be at the time.

As early as the fifteenth century, it became the practice that litigants who felt they had been cheated by the common-law system would petition the King in person. For example, they might argue that an award of damages (at common law) was not sufficient redress for a trespasser occupying their land, and instead request that the trespasser be evicted. From this developed the system of equity, administered by the Lord Chancellor, in the courts of chancery. By their nature, equity and law were frequently in conflict and litigation would frequently continue for years as one court countermanded the other, even though it was established by the seventeenth century that equity should prevail. A famous example is the fictional case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Bleak House. by Charles Dickens .

In England, courts of law and equity were combined by the Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875, with equity being supreme in case of conflict.

In the United States. parallel systems of law (providing money damages) and equity (fashioning a remedy to fit the situation, including injunctive relief) survived well into the twentieth century in many jurisdictions. The United States federal courts procedurally separated law and equity until they were combined by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938—the same judges could hear either kind of case, but a given case could only pursue causes in law or in equity, under two separate sets of procedural rules. This became problematic when a given case required both money damages and injunctive relief.

Delaware still has separate courts of law and equity, and in many states there are separate divisions for law and equity within one court.