PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER. HISTORICAL SERIES No. VII. Studies and Notes supplementary to Stubbs' Constitutional History SHERRATT & HUGHES Publishers to the Victoria University of Manchester Manchester: 34 Cross Street London: 60 Chandos Street, W.C. supplementary to Down to the Great Charter CHARLES BY PETIT-DUTAILLIS Honorary Professor in the University of Lille TRANSLATED BY W. E. RHODES M.A. Formerly Jones Fellow in History MANCHESTER AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1908 PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION. THE twelve studies and notes here printed have been translated from the French of Professor Ch. PetitDutaillis in order to provide the English student with a supplement to the first volume of Bishop Stubbs' "Constitutional History of England." The recent appearance of the first volume of a French translation of that classical work, almost exactly a quarter of a century after the publication of the corresponding volume of the original, is good evidence that it still remains the standard treatise on its subject. At the same time, the fact that M. Petit-Dutaillis, the editor of the French edition, has found it necessary to append over 130 closely printed pages by way of addition and correction shows that the early part of the book, at all events, has not escaped the ravages of time. The twenty-five years which have elapsed since it appeared have seen much fruitful research both in England and abroad upon the period which it covers. Continental scholars such as Fustel de Coulanges and Meitzen and in this country Maitland, Seebohm, Round, Vinogradoff, and others have added greatly to our knowledge of the origin and early history of English institutions. The results of this research so far as it had proceeded in Stubbs' lifetime were very imperfectly incorporated by him in the successive editions of his book. Moreover, as M. Petit-Dutaillis points out in his preface, the study of these institutions is now approached from a standpoint different from that which was taken by Stubbs and his contemporaries. Some portions of the first volume of the "Constitutional |