Page:Why the History of English Law is Not Written.djvu/14

5 stands out in its unique grandeur, and when our rolls of the King's Court begin in Richard's day, when our manorial rolls begin in Henry III.'s or John's, and our Year Books in Edward I.'s, then we become the nation whose law may be intimately known. Owing to the very early centralization of justice in this conquered country we acquired, owing to our subsequent good fortune we have preserved, a series of records which for continuity, catholicity, minute detail and authoritative value has—I believe that we may safely say it—no equal, no rival, in the world. And let those who think the twelfth century too late an age to be interesting, who wish for the law of more primitive times, consider how sound a base for their studies these records are. If once we were certain of our twelfth century we might understand Domesday, if once we understood the state of England on the day when the Confessor was alive and dead, then we might turn with new hopes of success to the Anglo-Saxon dooms and land-books.

I have said that our neighbours are less fortunate than we are; but perhaps that is not so, for hoarded wealth yields no interest. Of what has been done for the history of Roman law it is needless to speak; every shred of evidence seems to have been crushed and thrashed and forced to give up its meaning and perhaps somewhat more than its meaning. But look at the history of French law or of German law; it has been written many times on many different scales from that of the popular handbook to that of the erudite treatise, while the modern literature of monographs on themes of legal history is