Frederic William Maitland

Frederic William Maitland , 1850-1906, English legal historian, educated at Cambridge. A thorough scholar, he founded the Selden Society for the publication of early English documents and edited many texts himself, such as Henry de Bracton's notebook and the Year Books of Edward II (completed by G. J. Turner, 4 vol., 1903-7). The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I (1895), which he wrote with Sir Frederick Pollock, is a brilliant work, still standard. Other studies by him, notable for their prose style as well as sound elucidation of the ideas and attitudes embodied in legal institutions, are Domesday Book and Beyond (1897, repr. 1966), a model for the use of a source; English Law and the Renaissance (1901); Equity (ed. by A. H. Chaytor and W. J. Whittaker, 1909; rev. ed. by John Brunyate, 1937); and The Forms of Action at Common Law (ed. by A. H. Chaytor and W. J. Whittaker, 1909 and 1937). His Constitutional History of England (ed. by H. A. L. Fisher, 1908) is a valuable series of lectures.

Bibliography: See his collected papers (ed. by H. A. L. Fisher, 3 vol., 1911) and Selected Essays (ed. by H. D. Hazeltine, G. T. Lapsley, and P. H. Winfield, 1936, repr. 1968); biography by G. R. Elton (1985).

Maitland, Frederick William (1850–1906). Historian. By common consent, Maitland was one of the great British historians, with remarkable influence after a comparatively short academic career. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he began as a lawyer but switched to history. His most famous book was a History of English Law (1895) of which his co‐author, Sir Frederick Pollock, wrote only a fraction.

Maitland, Frederick William (1850–1906). Historian. By common consent, Maitland was one of the great British historians, with remarkable influence after a comparatively short academic career. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he began as a lawyer but switched to history. He performed a vast amount of editorial work on medieval records, most of it for the Selden Society, but his most famous book was a History of English Law (1895) of which his co-author, Sir Frederick Pollock, wrote only a fraction. Maitland was elected professor of the laws of England at Cambridge in 1898, which he held at Downing. ‘A model of critical method, a model of style and a model of intellectual temper,’ was A. L. Smith's comment.

J. A. Cannon