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and tenth centuries, at a time when vaulting was supposed not to exist in Christian architecture. In classical lands the Church type of vaulting was not commonly used till about 1050.

The origin of Gothic art is still wrapped in mystery, but Prof. Strzygowski makes it clear that it can no longer be satisfactorily explained as a development of " Romanesque " architecture, and was undoubtedly influenced by the earlier wooden architecture of the North. Pregnant indeed is his suggestion that perhaps we may see the germ of the Gothic cathedral in the parallel ribs used in the pointed or keel bows of the ships of the Vikings. Ship architecture, as he proves, had a considerable influence on the early land buildings of Scandinavia. The time is approachingif indeed it has not already arrived-when the history of European art will have to be completely re-written, and the historian of the future will have to keep a vigilant eye not only on those Mediterranean coastlands whose art laid a misleading accent on imitation, but also on the East and on the neglected North where art was ruled by design.

If we are right in believing that architectural ideas are influencing other arts, then we may expect architecture itself to justify its hegemony of taste by splendid achievement. The twentieth century is not yet far advanced, and already there are signs of a new architecture in England. A writer in The Times recently went so far as to pronounce it " not unlikely that the year 1924 will mark a turning-point in the history of modern English architecture." He based his prophecy chiefly on Messrs. Simpson and Ayrton's exhibition buildings at Wembley :

Without any deliberate flouting of tradition, they represent the definite acceptance of reinforced concrete on its own merits as a building material and the attempt to develop its architectural possibilities in dignified mass and construction through its own methods of construction. (The Times, February 10, 1925.)

It is a commonplace of criticism to say that contemporary architecture is endeavouring to "reconcile Gothic vitality with classic symmetry." If so, our architects are endeavouring to reconcile irreconcilables. The Greek temple and the Gothic cathedral are the perfect fruits of the two most perfect systems of architecture which the wit of man has yet devised; but the ideas which animated them are utterly incompatible. The first is static; the second is dynamic. The Greek temple is based on

resignation and quiescence; the Gothic cathedral is founded on energy and aspiration. At the same moment no man and no building can be both perfectly quiet and perfectly energetic. The architects of the twentieth century have got to make up their minds which is to be their aim. At the beginning of this century, when all the talk was of steel construction, it seemed possible that the idea of energy might prevail, and that a metallic warfare of steel-ribbed edifices might lead to a style of architecture which— as March Phillipps said of the Gothic cathedral-was not so much a fabric as a fight."

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To-day all the talk is of ferro-concrete and the greatest danger is lest, like the Romans, we have found, as Ruskin said," a cheap and easy way of doing that whose difficulty was its chief honour." From the pitfall of "added ornament " only public opinion and the architects can save us, and if the artificial monolith is to be the corner-stone of twentieth century architecture, then we must hope for a style that is based not on irresistible force, but on the quiet grandeur of the irremovable mass.

FRANK RUTTER

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THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LAW

A History of English Law. By W. S. HOLDSWORTH, K.C., D.C.L.
Methuen. 1922-24.

The History of English Law before Edward I. By Sir F. POLLOCK and
F. W. MAITLAND. Second edition. Cambridge University Press. 1898.
A Short History of English Law. By E. JENKS. Methuen. 1912.
A History of the English Prize Court. By E. S. RoscOE. Lloyd's,
Royal Exchange. 1924

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more important historical work has lately been published than Professor Holdsworth's remarkable History of English Law." In 1903 his first three volumes were printed and of them a second edition was issued in 1914. But much fresh material essential for the preparation of a complete history of English law has in the meanwhile become available and the subject has in various degrees received the attention of scholars. Consequently this history as now published is, as regards the first volume, an entirely new work; volumes two and three are enlarged editions of previous volumes; and the remaining seven volumes, of which the last has still to appear, contain new work. The history is nominally carried to the end of the eighteenth century; but in fact it extends in some respects to a later date, as in the description of the judicial system, which is brought down to the present day.

We are presented therefore for the first time with a comprehensive and complete narrative of the growth of English law, of its relations to the national life and of the personal factors which are conspicuous during its history down to modern times. The entire work is elaborately documented and the many notes are exceedingly valuable. The reader is enabled to survey in ordered sequence during many centuries the entire field of English law, and the conclusions which he may draw from his survey are based on facts presented in a straightforward manner and not on any unfounded theories or assumptions. The patience and labour of the historian in placing these materials at our disposal have been immense and prolonged, but they will have been well repaid by the admirable storehouse of facts which has been erected.

In the earlier portions of the history Professor Holdsworth

is to some extent indebted (as he states) to the classical work of Sir Frederick Pollock and the late F. W. Maitland which, for the light it throws upon the period covered, can never be entirely superseded. One could have wished that a work of such national importance as that which Professor Holdsworth has almost completed had been issued in a more attractive format and by a University Press, whose first care should be to publish books such as this, especially as the history of English law forms an integral part of the general history of England. As Professor Holdsworth points out, historical teaching has hitherto been to some extent incomplete, because no account or at least an insufficient account has been taken of the place of law in relation to national progress. In the study of law the value of its history in relation to the growth not only of substantive law but of procedure has been inadequately appreciated. Without a knowledge of the history of English law the course of English history generally cannot be properly understood-for the law has influenced both constitutional development and national progress; and on the other hand the movements of the national life and political events have left their mark on English jurisprudence and on the English legal system.

In the Norman Conquest we have a primary factor in the moulding of English law, producing as it did the commencement of a centralised system of justice emanating from the Sovereign. We see this influence in relation to a particular institution, namely trial by jury. On the continent the determination of rights by means of an inquisition was a practice of the Carlovingian Kings and it survived in the provinces conquered by the Normans. In this form it was brought by them to England and on its first appearance was " a body of neighbours summoned by some public officer to give upon oath a true answer to some question." It was an institution both administrative and judicial, which gradually in course of time was confined to judicial purposes only.

In England in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Government was centralised; the king's judges perambulated the country, and with them were associated the jury, at first rather as witnesses than as judges, but eventually becoming judicial in their functions with a well-defined jurisdiction as determinors of facts. The value of trial by jury as a safeguard of individual liberty is

But this

one of the commonplaces of constitutional discussion. liberty rests on a legal procedure which in its turn is found to have its commencement in the Norman Conquest and to have its character marked by the position of the royal authority in England. The old inquisition in France has in that country developed into the present procedure of judicial prosecution through the influence of the civil and canon law. In England trial by jury has become an institution which is regarded as peculiarly English and which has spread to the Overseas Dominions of the Crown and to the United States.

Substantive law was in early medieval times chiefly concerned with rights arising out of the possession of land, with doctrines as to tenures and estates and actions of trespass and kindred matters. It is in reference to this subject that Littleton's book on tenures— probably printed in 1481-is of great value, because it describes the land law as it existed when he was a judge of the Common Pleas" at the end of a period of continuous and purely logical development." It thus forms a mark in the growth of English law and at the same time exemplifies the importance in medieval times of what may succinctly be called real property law.

In regard to personal rights and to movable property the law did not become important until Englishmen became more civilised and began to possess chattels and to trade among themselves and with foreigners. As soon as this occurred English commerce from at least the fifteenth century affected English law and thenceforward maritime law occupied a large portion of English jurisprudence. Another feature to be noted in regard to personal rights is that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries law was expressed in a considerable degree by statute, as might be expected when a judicial system was only in process of formation and there were no means of formulating and recording judicial precedents.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the changes which had occurred began to produce the creation of national jurisprudence by means of decided cases, which gradually extended the Common Law-a body of jurisprudence the elements of which were Anglo Saxon customs, the laws of William I and his immediate successors and the civil and canon law. As regards these latter bodies of jurisprudence it is difficult to determine "how far there was a conscious replacement of native rules

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