Maitland, << MAYT luhnd, >> Frederic William (1850-1906), an English historian, pioneered in the study of early English legal history. His scholarship produced much of what is known today about the early history of English law. Maitland was able to sift through masses of contradictory and confusing evidence and find the truth. His important works include The History of English Law (1895), which he wrote with Frederick Pollock, and Domesday Book and Beyond (1897).
Maitland was born in London on May 28, 1850, and attended Eton school and Cambridge University. He studied law at Lincoln’s Inn, one of the four famous “Inns of Court” in London that served as the United Kingdom’s center for the study of the law. He practiced law for several years, then became a professor of English law at Cambridge in 1888. Maitland died on Dec. 19, 1906.
