English Feudalism and Estates in Land

Extract

It is fitting for a lecturer to pay his tribute to the man under whose auspices, so to speak, he lectures. That sometimes is a difficult matter, requiring the closing of an eye to many things, but in this case I am happily absolved from any such necessity, for there can be no doubt that Maitland was a man of genius. I hardly need say this in Cambridge, or in any other place where scholars come together, for his reputation has been long and securely established. It is now more than half a century since his death, and longer since his books were written, yet they are today more widely read than ever. The intensive researches of the last fifty years have made only the smallest alterations in the conclusions they reached. He himself was perhaps not quite as sure of them as we are. The most honest of men, he was always careful to reveal his doubts, and it is to a subject on which he had many doubts that I address myself today. I shall talk about the ownership and heritability of land in the twelfth century, in other words, about the emergence of the fee simple as an estate in land. I shall begin by setting before you Maitland's own account.