Ancient Constitution & Feudal Law: A Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century
Cambridge University Press
Edition: 2, 1/12/2008
EAN 9780521316439, ISBN10: 052131643X
Paperback, 424 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm
Language: English
Professor Pocock's subject is how the seventeenth century looked at its own past. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one of the most important modes of studying the past was the study of the law - the historical outlook which arose in each nation was in part the product of its law, and therefore, in turn of its history. In clarifying the relation of the historical outlook of seventeenth-century Englishmen to the study of law, and pointing out its political implication, Pocock shows how history's ground was laid for a more philosophical approach in the eighteenth century.
Preface
Preface to the first edition
Part I. The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law
1. Introductory
the French prelude to modern historiography
2. The common-law mind
custom and the immemorial
3. The common-law mind
the absence of a basis of comparison
4. The discovery of feudalism
French and Scottish historians
5. The discovery of feudalism
Sir Henry Spelman
6. Interregnum
the Oceana of James Harrington
7. Interregnum
the first royalist reaction and the response of Sir Matthew Hale
8. The Brady controversy
9. Conclusion
1688 in the history of historiography
Part II. The Ancient Constitution Revisited
A Retrospect from 1986
10. Historiography and common law
11. Civil War and interregnum
12. Restoration, revolution and oligarchy
Index.