Ancient Law

Whatever guardian spirit watches over such things assigned to Sir Henry James Sumner Maine, English comparative jurist and historian, the task of presenting Aryan tribal character and tying it to contemporary Anglo-Saxons. Maine graduated from Cambridge in 1844 with the reputation of being the most brilliant classical scholar of all time—Michael Jordan of legal history. His Ancient Law (1861) earned him a world-class reputation in one stroke. In a series of magnificent literary studies which followed, he brought to life the ancient world of Germania with singular felicity and power. Anglo-Saxons and Aryans lived again as one people.