F. W. Maitland 
Constitutional History of England 
A Course of Lectures Delivered

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. I have written a course of lectures in six months on Constitutional History. Do I publish it? No. The lectures written in six months, which Professor Maitland told the Cambridge Law Club would not be published, were delivered during the Michaelmas term of 1887 and the Lent term of 1888, and were specially designed for the needs of undergraduates of the University of Cambridge reading for the Law Tripos. The last word of the last lecture was written on April 7, 1888.<br><br>Let us observe the date. Maitland had been recalled to Cambridge as Reader in English Law in 1883 and this is one of his early courses of academic lectures delivered before his election to the Downing Chair in the summer of 1888. It was written seven years before the appearance of the History of English Law, nine years before Domesday Book and Beyond, ten years before Township and Borough, twelve years before the Introduction to Gierke’s Political Theories of the Middle Ages. From internal evidence it would seem that some of the earlier lectures were composed before the completion of Bracton’s Note Book in 1887. Much of the ground which is here covered was afterwards traversed with greater deliberation and more elaborate scrutiny; some part of the journey Maitland had never the leisure to retrace.