Anglo-Saxon Feudalism

Description

The American Historical Review. 1901. Vol. 7. №1. P. 11-35.In no country of Europe did the feudal system exert, either on public or private law, a more profound or more permanent influence than in England. In regard to public law it is enough to refer to the fact that the controlling principle which created the English limited monarchy was found in feudal law, or to this that the organization of the English judicial system of the present day bears plainly the marks of its feudal origin. In the field of private law it is doubtful if there is any country, certainly not any entire country, where the principles of feudalism were so thoroughly and so logically applied to the land law as in England, and it is an interesting fact that in some of the United States after a lapse of six hundred years considerable trouble and expense may be occasioned by statutes flamed in England at the end of the thirteenth century to protect the interest of the feudal lord, if the writer of a conveyance is careless in the form of words which he uses.