The Growth of the English Constitution from the Earliest Times

Edward Augustus FreemanProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.7
Word count
340K words
Chapters
34

Tags

English Originals Law Historical ReappraisalPower GameCivic AwarenessInstitutional EvolutionAcademic StudyIntellectual CommentaryEclectic ReadingPolitical CivilizationLegal TraditionModern Britain

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Growth of the English Constitution from the Earliest Times by Edward A. FreemanAuthor: Freeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus), 1823-1892,Language: English, Class: KD: Law in general, Comparative and uniform law, Jurisprudence: United Kingdom and Ireland, Release Date: Oct 6, 2014

Editor's review

Freeman's The Growth of the English Constitution is a major work of nineteenth-century English historical jurisprudence. Organized around continuity and Germanic origins, it traces the evolution of the English constitution from early tribal custom to the modern parliamentary system. Its strength lies in presenting institutional history as a process of organic growth, emphasizing the customs and communal life behind particular institutions rather than isolated statutes; the prose carries the broad judgments and argumentative temper of a Victorian historian. For students of English constitutional history, comparative constitutionalism, or historical jurisprudence, the book offers a classic analytical framework and set of problems, and can serve as a reference point for understanding later narratives of English constitutional history. Readers should note the author's period standpoint and teleological bent, and would do well to read it alongside other constitutional histories to form their own judgment.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. First review the basic timeline of English history, then follow the continuous thread of institutional evolution chapter by chapter.
  2. While reading, make an "institution—custom—event" comparison table to test the author's chain of argument.
  3. After each section, read a modern constitutional history alongside it and compare the differing narratives.
  4. Annotate the author's period judgments, distinguishing factual statements from value claims.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34

FAQ

Is this book suitable for beginners in constitutional law? Not really as a first introductory book. It assumes readers already have a basic timeline of English history, and its prose and argument carry a nineteenth-century historiographical style. Reading a modern general history of the English constitution first, then returning to this book, will make its problems and argument easier to grasp.
What is the book's core argument? According to the source material and public-domain common knowledge, the book takes the continuity of the English constitution as its main thread, stressing that its institutional roots reach back to early Germanic custom and communal life, and treats the constitution as an organic process of long growth rather than a one-off legislative design. Readers should note the historical context and polemical purpose of this framework.
What level of English is needed to read this book? The original is nineteenth-century English academic prose, with long sentences and dense argument, requiring good English reading ability. Keep a dictionary and reference works on English history at hand; with long sentences, grasp the main clause first, then return to modifiers and examples, so that complex syntax does not interrupt comprehension.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Edward Augustus Freeman Author · British · 1823–1892

Edward Augustus Freeman (1823–1892) was a British historian, architectural draughtsman and Liberal, born at Harborne in Warwickshire. Orphaned in early childhood, he was raised by his grandmother, graduated from Trinity College, Oxford, and from 1884 held the Regius Professorship of Modern History at Oxford. He died of smallpox at Alicante, Spain, in 1892. A prolific author, he is represented here by nine works spanning constitutional history, European history and travel writing. His constitutional histories trace the origins of English institutions in a careful, comparative manner, while his travel and local histories reflect an architectural draughtsman's eye for churches and townscapes observed on the ground. Public information on the details of his life is limited, yet the range of his subjects and the sober manner of his narrative still convey his approach to history.