The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: A Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century

An interesting early book by the great historian of ideas JGA Pocock. This book focuses on what Pocock calls the history of historiography in 17th century England. Pocock is concerned mainly with reconstructing how 17th century intellectuals thought about their past. This apparently recondite topic turns to have a number of interesting dimensions. Pocock begins with a surprising and interesting fact, that something prefiguring historical analysis emerged from the study of legal traditions. This occurred first in 16th century France, where the emerging methods of humanist textual criticism were applied to legal traditions. The existence of different legal traditions in France led several scholars to discover the dynamic quality of legal history, the discovery of feudalism, and reconstruction of legal history in the context of a form of social history. In England, where the common law tradition had no competitors, the evolution of knowledge followed a different course. The common lawyers, epitomized by the great Edward Coke, projected the common law and contemporary English political institutions back into an immemorial past as a permanent feature of English life. This treatment of English legal history was entangled in efforts to resist James I assertions of royal power. Subsequent scholars, notably the great antiquarian Henry Spelman, partly inspired by French scholars, subsequently discovered the changing nature of English law, discovered feudal law, and made inferences from legal history to imaginative and insightful reconstructions of medieval English society. Pocock evinces particular symppathy for Spelman's efforts to elucidate non-anachronistic understandings of key terms and concepts, an activity very similar to Pocock's own scholarly goals. Pocock traces the influence of Spelman's discoveries on subsequent scholars and how these reconstructions of English history were entangled in 17th century politics. This book concludes with a nice chaper on the treatment of English history following the Glorious Revolution, describing the emergence of the Whig version of English history and looking forward to the work of important 18th century historians like Robertson and Hume. Like of all of Pocock's work, this book is characterized by close analysis of the texts, Pocock's impressive erudition, and clear writing.