DISSERTATIONS ON EARLY LAW AND CUSTOM CHIEFLY SELECTED FROM LECTURES DELIVERED AT OXFORD BY SIR HENRY SUMNER MAINE, K.C.S.I. LL.D. F.R.S. AUTHOR OF ANCIENT LAW' 'VILLAGE-COMMUNITIES IN THE EAST AND WEST' ETC. LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1883 All rights reserved PREFACE. Two COURSES of lectures, delivered by the Author while he had the honour of holding the Corpus Professorship of Jurisprudence in the University of Oxford, have been already published with the titles Village-Communities in the East and West,' and 'The Early History of Institutions.' The substance of the present volume was originally contained in lectures which formed part of various other courses given by him at Oxford; but in some cases the form has been materially altered. The Author continues in these pages the line of investigation which he has followed in former works. He endeavours to connect a portion of existing institutions with a part of the primitive or very ancient usages of mankind, and of the ideas associated with these usages. In his first four chapters he attempts, with the help of the invaluable series |