[In the following excerpt from a study of Maitland that was first published in 1961, Cameron offers an analysis of Maitland's concept of history.]

[Maitland] came to history from the study of law, and the interrelationship of these two strains is evident throughout his writings. I do not mean to imply that Maitland was a narrow legal historian; this is far from the truth. Traditionally a lawyer is conservative in judgment and looks to the past only to find precedents for a case or evidence to sustain a preconceived opinion. Training in law normally does not result in historical-mindedness. Sir Frederick Pollock, who collaborated with Maitland in planning and writing The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I, has described Maitland as "a man with a genius for history, who turned its light upon law because law, being his profession came naturally into the field."

Maitland was certainly aware of the hazards of his profession, and he did not fall into the pattern of many lawyers who have written on history both before and since his time. He warns us that "we must not be in a hurry to get to the beginning of the long history of law." The historian of law, like any historian for that matter, must guard carefully against reading ideas of a later time into an earlier period and vice versa. Maitland warns us against the fallacy of believing that merely because our remote ancestors were simple folk they had simple law: "Simplicity is the outcome of technical subtlety; it is the goal not the starting point. As we go backwards the familiar outlines become blurred; the ideas become fluid, and instead of the simple we find the indefinite." Extreme caution must be exercised in order to prevent reading our own ideas into the words used by our forebears. Medieval historians must be at least amateur etymologists. By way of example, Maitland tells us that "if we introduce the persona ficta too soon, we shall be doing worse than if we armed Hengest and Horsa with machine guns or pictured the Venerable Bede correcting proofs for the press."

For Maitland the earliest English law could not be distinguished from custom. The conscious separation of law from morals and religion was a slow and gradual process. "The history of law must be a history of ideals." The historian of law must strive to determine not only what men have said and done but what men have thought. In England this task gains significance from the fact that the connected and distinguishable legal life of the nation goes back to the time of Edward I. Undoubtedly this was an important factor not only in influencing Maitland to undertake his monumental work but also in defining the scope of the History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I. Although this work bears the joint authorship of Frederick William Maitland and Sir Frederick Pollock, Pollock wrote a preface in which he protested that although it had been jointly planned, Maitland had done by far the greater portion of both the actual research and the writing. Miss Cam tells us that Maitland wrote all of this work except the chapter on Anglo-Saxon law.

Since Maitland was primarily a historian of English law, he recognized the importance of the divisions of labor in order that the advancement of knowledge might be facilitated. For him the history of law was an integral part of the history of England; indeed, "it was the key to the whole story." He recognized that it was necessary to go outside of his own special field of interest in order to gain a complete understanding or explanation of the material under consideration. He readily acknowledged that the history of English towns "must not be merely the history of legal arrangements. The trade winds blow where they list, and defy the legislator." Maitland undoubtedly gave more assistance to those laboring in neighboring vineyards than he received, by pointing out that "legal documents, documents of the most technical kind, are the best, often the only evidence that we have for social and economic history, for the history of morality, for the history of practical religion." He certainly deserves some of the credit for the fact that medievalists today use legal documents as sources for social and economic history to a far greater extent than they did in the nineteenth century.

Maitland's legal training caused him to be suspicious of generalizations. In instances in which generalizations were essential, he illustrated his general principles by applying them to specific cases. As Sir Paul Vinogradoff has suggested, "What he wanted most was to trace ideas to their embodiment in facts." Maitland's ability to relate legal terms to personal experiences and meaningful patterns of thought is illustrated by his explanation of the meaning of the Anglo-Saxon term sake:

It is still in use among us, for though we do not speak of a sake between two persons, we do speak of a man acting for another's sake, or for God's sake, or for the sake of money. In Latin therefore sake may be rendered by placitum: "Roger has sake over them" will become "Rogerius habet placita super eos"; Roger has the right to hold pleas over them. Thus easily enough sake becomes the right to have a court and do justice.

It was Maitland's extensive knowledge of source material which enabled him to use this manner of exposition. He tried to use words to paint an image which would be correct and also intelligible to his readers. Although he preferred a concrete or case-related type of exposition, he was neither unable nor unwilling to resort to generalization when it was necessary or desirable. This becomes immediately apparent to anyone who reads his article on the Elizabethan settlement in the Cambridge Modern History or his article on the history of English law which appears in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Even in his more technical writings, however, "he exhibited the rare combination of mastery of detail and high generalizing power."

Maitland's concern for the history of English law was central to his whole professional career. Nearly everything that he wrote or edited was directly related to this general subject. Although he was probably not aware of it at the time, his inaugural lecture as Downing Professor of the Laws of England set the theme for his academic career. He tells us in the first place that the history of English law was not written because its study was isolated from every other study. Secondly, although English lawyers were exposed to a little knowledge of the history of English law, this was primarily medieval law as interpreted by modern courts to suit modern cases. This was hardly the historical method, nor did it lead to a very rapid increase in the knowledge of the history of law. Maitland pointed out that only a few of the men who chose the legal profession would succeed in it, and he suggested that some of those who failed would be admirably prepared to pursue the history of law. This sounds like practical advice from one who knew whereof he spoke. Mr. Rogers, with whom Maitland read law for several years, wrote that although Maitland possessed "the clearest grasp of legal points and the utmost lucidity of expression,… I doubt if he would have succeeded as a barrister" because "he was the most retiring and diffident man that I ever knew."

A Sunday afternoon stroll, on May 11, 1884, with the Russian scholar, Paul Vinogradoff, has been credited, by Maitland's biographer, with first calling to Maitland's attention the abundance of written records at the Public Record Office, from which the history of English law might be derived. Several more recent writers have pointed out that Maitland had already been working in the Public Record Office before the supposedly climactic day described by Fisher. Professor Plucknett has distorted Fisher's account to mean that Maitland's encounter with Vinogradoff was responsible for "Maitland's sudden conversion to legal history." This interpretation can be readily disproved merely by referring to the Maitland bibliography at the end of [Frederic William Maitland and the History of English Law] which indicates that Maitland's publications on legal history go back five years prior to this encounter. Actually Fisher merely stated that Maitland had told him personally of that Sunday talk:

… how from the lips of a foreigner he first received a full consciousness of that matchless collection of documents for the legal and social history of the middle ages, which England had continuously preserved and consistently neglected, of an unbroken stream of authentic testimony flowing for seven hundred years, of tons of plearolls from which it would be possible to restore an image of long-vanished life with a degree of fidelity which could never be won from chronicles and professed histories. His vivid mind was instantly made up; on the following day he returned to London, drove to the Record Office, and being a Gloucestershire man … asked for the earliest plea-roll of the county of Gloucester.

We know that Maitland and Vinogradoff first met on a "Sunday tramp" arranged by Leslie Stephen on January 20 of the year in question. The facts would best be served if we assumed that it was on this first encounter that Vinogradoff shared the triumph of his discovery with his newfound friend. In recounting this event many years after it actually occurred, Maitland was probably confused in his own mind about the actual day. Undoubtedly the source of his knowledge was of far greater importance to Maitland than the exact day of the event. We have every reason to believe that Vinogradoff was the first to appreciate the value of the records stored in the Public Record Office. Maitland dedicated his first volume of legal records to him. In a later letter to his friend, Maitland referred to this incident as "that day [which] determined the rest of my life." One must conclude that it was Vinogradoff who first pointed out to Maitland the treasure in the Public Record Office. If this is so and Maitland was using the Record Office in February, then Vinogradoff must have confided in Maitland at their first meeting in January.

Maitland was also inspired by his grandfather, Samuel Roffey Maitland, and by his friend Frederick Pollock. In a letter to his sister, Maitland evaluated his grandfather's writings. It is of some interest to note that most of the things which he said about his grandfather's writings could be said with equal validity about his own.

It is a book for the few, but then those few will be just the next generation of historians. It is a book which "renders impossible" a whole class of existing books.… One has still to do for legal history something of the work which Samuel Roffey Maitland did for ecclesiastical history … to teach men that some statement about the thirteenth century does not become the truer because it has been constantly repeated.

Most of Maitland's writings revolve about the hub of English law. His earliest works were editions of legal records which he felt it was necessary to scrutinize in order to evaluate properly the workings of the early legal system.

The earliest court records which were available were those of the thirteenth century. He was forced, therefore, to begin at that point and to work in both directions. He first gave his attention to working backwards to the earlier period. In this, he followed the method of Frederick Seebohm. It was necessary to spend much time analyzing the records of the Domesday survey. Although certain general results were incorporated in the History of English Law, Maitland found it necessary to extend his views in a separate and subsequent volume, Domesday Book and Beyond. He was aware of the danger his method entailed, but realizing that there was none other available, he proceeded with extreme caution to decipher this enigmatic period. If all of his conclusions have not stood up, they have at least provided a stimulus to other scholars. The Ford Lectures for 1897 were a by-product of this research. Maitland's monumental work ground to a halt at the reign of Edward I because there was so much to be prepared and explored before a synthesis could be produced. He turned to decipher the Year Books, but found it necessary to prepare a grammar of Norman French before he could proceed. He probably overestimated the value of the Year Books, but even this conclusion could not be reached before he and others had laid the groundwork by their investigations.

Professor Schuyler tells us that Maitland has meant more to him than any other historian, "not primarily for the subjects he dealt with, but for his methods, his insights, and his superb historical sense. Maitland also set a standard for scholarship in reviewing the work of another author. If a scholar is to persuade those of his readers who are really worth convincing, he must give them not bare theories but "the very terms of the original documents candidly, accurately, and at length." Maitland practiced what he preached in this regard, for his works contain many Latin citations and his footnotes are liberally sprinkled with Latin quotations. This method precludes any concern for historical philosophy by its dedication to historical truth. Nor was Maitland content when he merely used documents, for these documents must be subjected to rigid examination. It was by this method that he determined that the Year Books were not official records maintained by the court but were the notebooks of young law students who were attending the court sessions. In a similar manner he became convinced that Henry II, by the Assize of Clarendon, instituted the inquest or the presentment jury. Henceforth, a jury could be summoned when there was no litigation in order to provide the king with desired information.

In little more than twenty years, and with Maitland severely hampered half the time by pleurisy, "a flood of books, articles, and reviews flowed from his pen, of a sustained high quality and, at times, brilliance unequalled in English historiography." "He left no rough edges and he touched nothing he did not adorn." A recent editor of Maitland's essays remarked that "nothing that he wrote can ever be tarnished by time in the matchless attraction of his style or in the brilliant scholarship and originality of thought which he brought to bear upon every topic that he handled." The writing style of Maitland would never rival that of Macaulay, Trevelyan, or Churchill in popular appeal, for two reasons. In the first place, the subject matter which formed the basis of his conclusions was of little interest to any but lawyers and scholars; and secondly, he was not writing for the masses. Nevertheless, he was able to express himself simply, clearly, and forcefully. His article in the Cambridge Modern History revealed that he was capable of writing for a much wider audience when he pleased.

Maitland's work as a researcher and editor enabled him to bring to his writing "that firmness of hand which nothing but original research can give." Since his conclusions are based so squarely upon his sources, they cannot be ignored regardless of their validity. It was his firm conviction that a good work of scholarship should possess value even though all of the conclusions of the writer should prove to be false. The keenness of Maitland's mind and the originality of his thought are evident in most of his writings. His works are permeated with suggestions which deserve, and in many cases have received, close examination and further exposition. As was to be expected, some of his suggestions have proved to be fruitful while others have fallen by the wayside. The originality of his thought and the soundness of his scholarship are undoubtedly two of the outstanding characteristics discovered in his writings.

"The best of gamekeepers is a converted poacher, and the best historians of law have been converted lawyers." The same qualities of mind which made him admirably suited to be a solicitor stood him in good stead in his approach to the history of law. Maitland's ability to analyze is revealed in his effort to decipher the nature of the organization of the institutions of Anglo-Saxon society from the evidence of the Domesday survey. His analytical mind was aware of the value, if not the necessity, of comparing English with Continental developments. He noted that during the reign of Henry II, England took the lead among the states of Europe "in the production of law and of a national legal literature." Next, he went on to contrast Glanvill's treatise with the absence of any counterpart in either Germany or France. In yet another place, he pointed out that English medieval law could be illustrated at numberless points by the contemporary law of France and Germany. The comparative method held an important place in both Maitland's mind and his writings. His analytical skill is well exemplified in "The History of a Cambridgeshire Manor," in which he sets forth the chronological development of the manor of Wilburton belonging to the church of Ely from about 1350 through the sixteenth century. His highly developed powers of synthesis can be illustrated by his description of a typical manor, which he summarizes as follows:

Thus we may regard the typical manor (1) as being qua vill, an unit of public law, of police and fiscal law, (2) as being an unit in the system of agriculture, (3) as being an unit in the management of property, (4) as being a judicial unit. But we have now to see that hardly one of these traits can be considered as absolutely essential.

The quest for historical truth was uppermost in Maitland's scholarship. He tried to divest himself of all prejudice and preconceptions and so lose himself in the documents of the period he was studying that he would be able to think the thoughts of medieval men after them. Professor Schuyler went so far as to declare, "I doubt whether any medievalist has ever made a more earnest and sustained effort to get inside the medieval mind." Maitland's constant and relatively successful effort to approach the sources with an open mind led him to see many things which others had missed and to challenge beliefs which others had uncritically accepted. It was while reading the Provinciale of William Lyndwood that Maitland became aware of a contradiction between the ideas of this fifteenth-century churchman and those attributed to fifteenth-century churchmen by the Report of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission. Maitland's lack of enthusiasm for any particular church or theological position gave him an impartiality and an open-mindedness which was generally not to be found in church historians. He was able to document and support his conclusions so satisfactorily that even Bishop Stubbs, who had helped in the preparation of the Report, accepted his conclusions.

The quest for historical truth must involve thoughts as well as words. Maitland not only was a clear thinker but possessed an unusual knack of turning a clever phrase and, with a characteristic wit, driving home the point which would clinch his argument:

If we speak, we must speak with words; if we think, we must think with thoughts. We are moderns and our words and thoughts can not but be modern. Perhaps, as Mr. Gilbert once suggested, it is too late for us to be early English. Every thought will be too sharp, every word will imply too many contrasts. We must, it is to be feared, use many words and qualify our every statement until we have almost contradicted it.

His concern for truth inevitably led to extreme care in his choice and use of words in order that he might convey the exact sense or meaning that he had grasped. This has made it relatively easy for those who have differed with him to take issue with him, for no one has ever professed ignorance of the meaning or intention of Maitland's words. "Maitland's ear for gradations in the scale of meaning was extraordinarily sensitive; it would be difficult, in any of his writings, to find cases of semantic flatting or sharping." His daughter tells us that he was very careful in dealing with words and always said or thought the words to himself as he read or wrote. He even went so far as to recite his lectures to himself as he paced back and forth, in order to make certain that what he said sounded as he intended that it should. One of the qualities which contributed most to attract his readers was the "wealth of humor that pervaded all his writings, in spite of their severe aims and their highly technical details." One cannot read Maitland's writings for very long without coming across one of his "happy pointed phrases." His humor is not an ornamental adjunct but generally concludes an argument in which he sums up his case in the manner of "a wise and kindly judge who takes into account all the extenuating circumstances and as he looks at the culprit feels 'there, but for the grace of God, stands Richard Baxter.'" His introduction to Mirror of Justices is probably the best extended example of his use of humor in effectively handling an involved and complicated problem involving the book's authorship, purpose, and value.

After a decade of private law practice, Maitland, in 1884, returned to Cambridge as a Reader of English Law. The publication of Pleas of the Crown for the County of Gloucester earlier in the year had won for him wide recognition as a scholar. He was to remain at Cambridge first as Reader and then as Downing Professor of the Laws of England for the remainder of his life. He confided to his friend Vinogradoff on many occasions "that he would much rather devote his life to the historical study of English law than watch his chamber in Lincoln's Inn for footsteps of the client who never comes." Maitland had attracted the attention of Frederick Pollock as early as 1879 when Maitland published an article on "The Law of Real Property." Pollock found in Maitland a kindred mind; and a friendship developed, which, among other things, resulted in the History of English Law.

Soon after settling at Cambridge, Maitland recognized that his vision of writing the history of English law was so broad that a co-operative effort would be required to do the editing and produce the monographs which would form the foundation for such a work. He therefore instituted the organization of the Selden Society in 1887 "to encourage the study and advance the knowledge of the history of English law." It has been said that without Maitland's genius, learning, and devotion the Selden Society would not have existed. There is no question but that he was its prime mover, and he was its first literary editor. Eight of the twenty-one volumes issued by the society during his lifetime came from his pen, and another was almost completed at his death.…

Maitland was not only a scholar but also a professor. His inheritance of a modest estate from his grandfather enabled him not only to marry in 1886 while living on the slender stipend of a Reader but also to "incur the expense involved in the preparation and publication of some of his most important work." We know of his lectures through both the witness of his students and posthumous publication. As Miss Cam has pointed out, it is to be regretted that Maitland is known to so many students mainly through his lectures on constitutional history which were written in 1888 and published after his death against his declared judgment. His lectures had the same general characteristics which distinguished his writings. They were "original, illuminating, suggestive, and stimulating in what they had to say, which was carefully prepared" and read in a slow, distinct voice which enabled the student to take full notes. Maitland did not shirk his nonteaching professorial duties, but carried them out with the same thoroughness and loyalty that marked his other academic activities.

Maitland's chief impact upon the teaching of history was "his presentation of Henry II as founder of the common law, and with it of the English monarchy as the guardian of justice to all." Today it is universally recognized that Maitland's introduction to the Parliamentary Roll of 1893, it attracted little attention until 1910, when Charles Mcllwain's High Court of Parliament appeared. The implications and suggestions of Maitland's introduction have produced a major revision in the accepted views on the nature and the origin of Parliament. This introduction is an outstanding example of Maitland's critical approach to his documents. It seems strange that he did not return to this subject, but his failure to do so might be explained by suggesting that he considered it to be a constitutional rather than a legal issue and therefore outside the realm of his prime concern. The failure of scholars to grasp the implications of this introduction—that the history of Parliament must be rewritten—may be attributed to the seeming tentativeness of Maitland's approach. In only one instance did he suggest that he had ventured to differ from what seemed to be the general opinion of scholars, and he even questioned whether this difference was real or apparent. At the time that Maitland wrote, it was necessary to emphasize the curial nature of Parliament. Those who pursued this course, including Maitland himself, underestimated the political aspects of a parliament. We are now able to obtain a more balanced estimate of the nature and function of Parliament than was possible heretofore.

Maitland's character and personality are reflected in the reviews which he wrote of the works of others and by his own reactions to what others said or wrote about his own work. His judgments on the writings of others were as astute as those which he made on the documents that formed the basis of his own writings. He had a critical mind which enabled him to read with insight, and yet even his criticisms usually reflected a kindliness of manner. He was called upon to write reviews of thirty-three books, mostly for the English Historical Review. He declined the invitation of Reginald L. Poole to review other books because of personal feelings about their authors. Maitland began his reviews by pointing out the strong points or major contributions of the work under consideration before mentioning its shortcomings. He was never afraid to state what appeared to him to be the truth merely because it went against accepted opinion; in fact, he seemed to take delight in challenging views which were hallowed by tradition. His manner was entirely different, however, when it came to dealing with individuals. Although he set forth his revisionary views concerning English canon law in a forthright manner, he was disturbed when he heard that Bishop Stubbs had taken personal offense at his words. Maitland's views on English canon law were first revealed in a series of articles in the English Historical Review. As he was bringing his essays together to republish them in book form, he wrote to Reginald Poole:

I hope and trust that you were not very serious when you said that the Bishop was "sore." I feel for him a respect so deep that if you told me that the republication of my essays would make him more unhappy than a sane man is whenever people dissent from him, I should be in great doubt what to do. It is not too late to destroy all or some of the sheets. I hate to bark at the heels of a great man whom I admire but tried to seem, as well as to be, respectful.

When it came to having his own work reviewed, Maitland preferred to have the most competent critic examine it. In submitting two of the volumes which he prepared for the Selden Society to the English Historical Review—The Mirror of Justices and Bracton and Azo—he asked that a professed Romanist be asked to review them. He disclaimed any knowledge of Roman law and wanted to know "whether I have been guilty of many 'howlers'—in short I want to know the worst." But he was not one to sit idly by while his works were subjected to an ill-founded attack. The Reverend Malcolm MacCoil, canon of Ripon, entered into controversy with Maitland on the subject of canon law. Maitland's reply was a devastating one which removed the Anglican position from serious contention thereafter. Round took exception to some of the views expressed in Domesday Book and Beyond. But this did not upset Maitland's equilibrium, for he recognized the weakness of his position. In a letter to Poole, he wrote: "It grieves me that you should brood over my Domesday. Of all that I have written that makes me most uncomfortable. I try to cheer myself by saying that I have given others a lot to contradict." Earlier, he had taken the unusual steps of writing a letter to James Tait concerning the latter's review of Domesday Book and Beyond. In it he expressed his appreciation for the critical nature of the review, which went far toward establishing Tait's reputation as one of the best historical scholars in England. This was typical of Maitland's encouragement to young scholars. Professor W. W. Buckland pointed out that Maitland was tolerant of slips and even ignorances in a younger scholar and illustrated the point by relating a personal experience.

The British educational system of Maitland's day did not place great emphasis upon what today we should call graduate study; therefore, Maitland's lectures were directed primarily toward undergraduates who were preparing for the Tripos. This system had two effects upon Maitland which were different from what his experience would have been had he been teaching in either the United States or Germany. First, he had few students whom he could prepare to assist him in his work or to follow him in realizing the vision which no man could complete in one lifetime. Nevertheless, he did hold a few advanced classes in paleography and diplomatics for the study of medieval English charters. He contended that in sixty hours he could train a student to read medieval documents with "fluency and exactitude." Second, Maitland was not the founder of any formal "school" although his views on the Parliament of 1305 are often considered the beginning of a distinct school of thought upon that subject. Mary Bateson was the only pupil of his who followed directly in her master's footsteps, but unfortunately her untimely death preceded Maitland's. Her industry and judgment rivaled that of Maitland. Her scholarship and her work as an editor brought her recognition as one of the best medievalists in England, and for this she gave credit to the "counsel and direction of Professor Maitland."

Maitland certainly had a broad vision of the history of English law. He expressed the hope that he would be able to bring "the English law of the thirteenth century into line with the French and German law of the same age." He felt that it would be impossible to evaluate adequately the true character of English law apart from the larger context of European law. He took pains to try to determine what was known to Glanvill and Bracton, but he was equally interested in contemporary scholarship among French, German, and American scholars. He indicated that he was trying to do for English law what many had already done for French and German law. He seemed to be one of the first English scholars to appreciate the work of American scholars. He was instrumental in getting Bigelow's book on Torts accepted in his law school and even an English edition of it published by the Cambridge University Press. Perhaps it was Maitland's early appreciation of American scholars which contributed in part at least to acclaim of him among scholars in the United States. He corresponded with several American professors and received them when they visited England.

The breadth of Maitland's vision for his subject explains why he was not able to complete the exposition of the history of English law. When he began his study, he carried the account back to Anglo-Saxon times on the strength of his Domesday studies and the research of other experts on local history. Maitland himself contributed a history of ancient Cambridge. He was able to carry his account forward to the time of the beginning of the Year Books. He felt that a critical edition of the Year Books was essential to the carrying forward of his main interest. This could not be done without a thorough knowledge of the Anglo-Norman French in which the records were made. Maitland investigated this language so thoroughly that a contemporary philologist, M. Paul Meyer, recommended his introduction to the first volume of the Year Books of Edward II to all students of medieval French.