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An Historical Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the English Constitution
An Historical Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the English Constitution Author:Gilbert Stuart General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1770 Original Publisher: T. Cadell Subjects: Anglo-Saxons Saxons Law, Anglo-Saxon Great Britain Saxony (Germany) History / General History / Europe / Great Britain History / Medieval Law / Constitutional Literary Collections / English, Irish, Scottish, ... more »Welsh Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Political Science / Constitutions Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: A N Historical Dissertation Concerning the Antiquity of the ENGLISH CONSTITUTION. P A R T II. ' Of the State of Land in the German and Gothic kingdoms. j SECTION I. Of the origin and progrefs of the Feudal Polity. TH E ftate of land in the German and Gothic kingdoms has been chiefly regulated by the feudal polity: and this fyftem, fo important and interefting, has been often often examined with equal ingenuity and learning. But authors, not attending to the earlier hiftory of the northern tribes, have generally afcri- bed its origin to their conquefts. It exifted, however, at a higher period; and before they had Tallied from their woods, it directed their political con- duct, and the confederacies into which they entered. The appearances it ex- -liibited on. their conquefts, and its after progrefs, were but the improvement pf inftitutions to which they had formerly been accuftomed. It may feem to a fuperficial obfefver, that the great number of nations with which Gaul and Germany were peopled had little or no connection with each other; and that, depending on their own force and arms, they fought their battles unaflifted by thofe leagues and alliances which take place in more po- lifhed times. Infincerity, it may be thought, and want o...« less