Secrets of the Modern World: F. W. Maitland

When we consider that some five thousand pages of detailed findings, written about a hundred years ago, have been modified in only a few minor emphases and one or two facts, and that the bulk of Maitland's edifice still stands, we can begin to understand why he has an almost god-like status among historians who know the problems he faced and the elegance of his solutions.

The great legal historian Vinogradoff disagreed with Maitland on some specifi...