The Legal Framework of English Feudalism: The Maitland Lectures Given in 1972

By S.F.C. Milsom

Book Overview

Professor Milsom works out a fresh view of the beginnings of the common law concerning land. The received picture depends upon progressive assumptions: key words began with their later meanings; the law began with abstract ideas of property; a tenant's title to his tenement was never subject to his lord's control; the lord had no discretion, only the power to decide disputes according to external criteria; jurisdiction in that sense was all the lord lost as royal remedies developed; and all the tenant gained was better protection of unaltered rights. It is a picture of procedural changes taking place against an unchanging background, with the feudal structure at the beginning almost as insubstantial as it was to be at the end.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521082838
• ISBN13: 9780521082839
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 220 Pages
• Weight: 0.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.5"