to a graduate of the University of Manchester, Mr. W. E. Rhodes, who has himself done good historical work. I have carefully revised it, corrected, with the author's approval, one or two small slips in the French text, substituted for its references to the French translation of the "Constitutional History" direct references to the last edition (1903) of the first volume of the original, and added in square brackets a few references to Professor Vinogradoff's "English Society in the Eleventh Century," which appeared after the publication of the French edition. The index has been adapted by Mr. Rhodes from the one made by M. Lefebvre for that edition.

THE UNIVERSITY,

MANCHESTER,

September 8th, 1908.

JAMES TAIT.

EXTRACTS FROM THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

THE French edition of the "Constitutional History of William Stubbs is intended for the use of the students of our Faculties of Arts and Law . . . The "Constitu'tional History" is a classic and the readers of the "Bibliothèque internationale de Droit public" have seen it more than once quoted as a book the authority of which is accepted without discussion. It seems desirable, however, to emphasize the exceptional merits of this great work as well as to draw attention to its weak points and, as it is not an adaptation but a translationcomplete and reverent that is given here, to explain why we have thought some additions indispensable ... All that we know of Stubbs inspires confidence, confidence in the solidity and extent of his knowledge, the honesty of his criticism, the sureness of his judgment, the depth of his practical experience of men and things. Despite the merit of his other works, and especially of the prefaces which he wrote for the Chronicles he edited, Stubbs only showed the full measure of his powers in the "Constitutional History." It is the fruit of prodigious labour, of a thorough investigation of all the printed sources which a historian could consult at the period when these three bulky volumes successively appeared. It is an admirable storehouse of facts, well chosen, and set forth with scrupulous good faith. The word Constitution" is taken in its widest sense. How the England of the Renascence with its strong Monarchy, its House of Lords, its local institutions, its Church, its Nobility, its towns, its freeholders and its villeins was evolved from the old Anglo-Saxon Britain,

1. In which the translation is included.

this is the subject of the author's enquiry. With the exception of diplomatic and military history he touches upon the most diverse subjects. His book is at once a scientific manual of institutions and, at least from the Norman Conquest onwards, a continuous history of every reign. Mr. Maitland has called attention to the advantages of the plan which by combining narrative and analysis allows no detail of importance to escape, and gives a marvellously concrete impression of the development of the nation.2

Does this imply that the perusal of the "Constitutional History" leaves us nothing to desire? The French who have kept the "classical" spirit and reserve their full admiration for that which is perfectly clear, will doubtless find that his thought is very often obscure and his conclusions undecided. This is really one result of the vast erudition and the good faith of the author. This honest historian is so careful not to neglect any document, so impressed with the complexity of the phenomena that he does not always succeed in disposing them in an absolutely coherent synthesis

But inconsistencies of view and the relative obscurity of certain passages are not the only fault which impairs Stubbs' work. There is another, at once more serious and more easily remedied, a fault which is particularly felt in the first volume. The book is no longer up to date. The chapters dealing with the Anglo-Saxon period, especially, have become obsolete on many points. The revisions effected by Stubbs in the successive editions which he published down to his death, are insufficient. They do not always give an accurate idea of the progress made by research, and they are not even executed with all the attention to details which is desirable. Although the author had not ceased to be interested in history the task of revision obviously repelled him. The "Constitutional History" has grown

2. Maitland, Eng. Hist. Rev., xvi., 1901, p. 422.

out of date in yet another way. Stubbs wrote history on lines on which it is no longer written by the great mediævalists of to-day. He belonged to the liberal generation which had seen and assisted in the attainment of electoral reforms in England and of revolutionary and nationalist movements on the Continent. He had formed himself, in his youth, under the discipline of the patriotic German scholars who saw in the primitive German institutions the source of all human dignity and of all political independence. He thought he saw in the development of the English Constitution the magnificent and unique expansion of these first germs of selfgovernment, and England was for him "the messenger of liberty to the world." The degree to which this optimistic and patriotic conception of English history could falsify, despite the author's scrupulous conscientiousness, his interpretation of the sources, is manifest in the pages which he devoted to the Great Charter. Nowadays when so many illusions have been dissipated, when parliamentary institutions, set up by almost every civilized nation, have more openly revealed, as they developed, their inevitable littlenesses and when the formation of nationalities has turned Europe into a camp, history is written with less enthusiasm. The motives of the deeds accomplished by our forefathers are scrutinized with cold impartiality, minute care is taken to grasp the precise significance which they had at the time when they were done, and lastly the economic conception of history exercises a certain influence even over those who do not admit its principles. Open the History of English Law" of Sir Frederick Pollock and Mr. Maitland, the masterpiece of contemporary English learning, written twenty years after the "Constitutional History" and note the difference of tone.

This French edition being intended for the use of students and persons little versed in medieval history, it was necessary to let them know that the work is not