Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/102

 3. ENGLISH LAW BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST 1

By Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart.^

FOR most practical purposes the history of English law does not begin till after the Norman conquest, and the earliest things which modern lawyers are strictly bound to know must be allowed to date only from the thirteenth cen- tury, and from the latter half of it rather than the former. Nevertheless a student who does not look farther back will be puzzled by relics of archaic law which were not formally dis- carded until quite modern times, and he may easily be misled by plausible but incorrect explanations of them, such as have been current in Blackstone's time and much later. In rare but important cases it may be needful for advocates and judges to transcend the ordinary limits of the search for authority, and trace a rule or doctrine to its earliest known form in this country. When this has to be done it is quite possible that wrong ancient history may lead to the declara- tion of wrong modern law. This happened in at least one ' This essay was published in the Law Quarterly Review, 1898, volume XIV, pp. 291-306. bridge) ; Barrister-at-law 1871 ; Professor of Jurisprudence, L^niversity College (London) 1882-83; Professor of Common Law in the Inns of Court 1884-1890; Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford 1883- 1903; Fellow of the British Academy 1902. Other Publications: Principles of Contract, 1876; Law of Torts, 1877, Digest of the Law of Partnership, 1877; The Land Laws, 1882; Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics, 1882; Possession in the Common Law (with Mr. Justice Wright), 1888; Oxford Lectures, 1890; Intro- duction to the History of the Science of Politics, 1890; Law of Fraud in British India, 1894; History of English Law to the Time of Ed- ward I (with Professor Maitland), 1895; First Book of Jurisprudence, 1896; Expansion of the Common Law, 1904; Introduction and Notes to Maine's Ancient Law, 1906. 88
 * Editor of the Law Quarterly Review; M. A. Trinity College (Cam-