iv	Preface
argument and to shun many alluring, and perhaps profit-
able, bypaths; while, on the other hand, it has some-
times entailed an apparent interruption of the theme in
order to develop a line of thought needed for logical com-
pleteness. More time has been spent upon origins than
upon descriptions of finished products or upon defini-
tions, in the belief that students should obtain much from
detailed and special works which would clog a general
account of institutional development.
On the basis of his experience as a teacher, the author
has brought out a college text upon the English constitu-
tion which closes at 1485. At that date, the distinctively
creative period, the period when the constitution was
in the making, ended. In studying this period, it is pos-
sible and, indeed, essential to separate sharply between
the work on the narrative and that on the institutions.
Moreover, upon the English middle ages, the scholar-
ship of the last generation has been especially active;
but its work is at present in a complex and unf ormulated
state, and the average student should not be directed
immediately to the mass of monographs and detailed
works of reference; he needs an intermediary and guide.
The modern period, on the other hand, has not been pri-
marily a period of creation; in it, the newly made con-
stitution has been tested and developed, and institutional
concerns have borne a very intimate relation to the
events and conditions prominent in a general narrative;
it lacks the long sequences of institutional evolution
which characterise the middle ages. In studying it, the
narrative and the constitution must be handled almost
simultaneously, and its literature is much better pre-
pared for the immediate use of the undergraduate. A
text-book dealing with the constitution after 1485 should
be a superfluity.
While it is the office of this book to present to stu-
dents the results of scholarship and serve as an introduc-
tion to the writings of the leading authorities, the author
is ready to claim that its general conception and con-