The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: A Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century

by J.G.A. Pocock

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.

Genres: History, Law, Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, British Literature

424 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

John Greville Agard Pocock was a historian of political thought, best known for his studies of republicanism in the early modern period (mostly in Europe, Britain, and America), his work on the history of English common law, his treatment of Edward Gibbon and other Enlightenment historians, and, in historical method, for his contributions to the history of political discourse. Pocock taught at Washington University in St. Louis from 1966 until 1975, and at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore from 1975 until 2011.

Reviews

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

At this point, Pocock's argument is old news, but that doesn't change the fact that it's still very big news. This was a tremendous (and tremendously careful) study of how the English approach to common law in the early 17th century (as by, say, Edward Coke) led to the development of the notion of its "timelessness" as part of an "ancient" (and, as Janelle Greenberg and others have discussed, largely fictional) constitution that was later subverted by more radical authors during the turbulent mid-17th century (and belatedly incorporated by apologists for the Crown). This differed from developments elsewhere on the continent, where regular exposure to civil law systems led to critiques of royal authority by Hotman et al. that were quite distinct than those authored across the Channel (not that England lacked ecclesiastical courts, or that they were unaware of this tradition--as Pocock notes, English legal thinkers referenced civil law in the mid-16th century, and Coke's work, although "historical," was nonetheless sui generis). Pocock would elaborate the "method" employed in doing this sort of history in subsequent writings, but this remains the most representative (if not necessarily the best) work in this genre. As a side note: I had dinner with this very old man two weeks ago, and am pleased to report that he's about as gracious and witty a person as one could imagine.

[Ryan Tindall · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's taken me nearly a year to get through this in its entirety, having originally read the first couple chapters for a paper I was writing on Edward Coke, and then setting it down for some months. But now that I have returned to it, this is a most stunning and comprehensive work. Pocock's narrative explains the common law mindset based around the ancient constitution--the body of customary law established from time immemorial--and its genealogy through Coke and Hale (and up to Burke); its foe in positive law laid down by the Hobbesian sovereign, whether by a sovereign parliament or absolute monarch, based in debates over whether William was conqueror or English law had its origins in German law; and its ultimate death-by-salvation in the timelessness of Locke's Whig social contract. The book is incredibly dense and presupposes a depth of knowledge which I have, in two years of legal and historical study, only begun to scratch the surface--but the amount that it explains and elucidates about the emergence of our modern politics from the late-Medieval mindset is simply astounding and worth every moment spent.

[Sebastian · Rating 5 out of 5]

...it is amazing, although getting to the amazing core really is hard work.