Introduction xxxil
violence of the Conquest was bound to result for a time
in confusion and uncertainty, a period often identified
with the first two Norman reigns. This period was short
owing mainly to the vigour and governing genius of the
Norman kings; and already under Henry I. we catch the
familiar outlines of the new, permanent growth. Then
follows the great period of constitution making. This book
deals briefly and by way of introduction with the Anglo-
Saxon and Norman background developments, takes ac-
count In cross-section summaries of the main tendencies
in the short period of post-Conquest confusion, and comes
to its main subject in the creative period following. It
closes with 1485, when much of the structural growth had
been completed and many generations of Englishmen had
been trained in governmental work and responsibility.
Pull political self-consciousness, a new questioning of all
grounds of authority, and the struggle for political liberty
belong to the centuries following.
To study the constitutional history of England means
to study the origin and growth of those institutions which
have to do with the government of the English people.
It is true that nearly everything in a people's life has at
least an indirect bearing upon the making of its govern-
ment; but in the study of this subject it is a practical
necessity to fix the attention especially upon certain
phases of the people's activity. Probably no two scholars
would agree as to just where the domain of constitutional
history ends and that of such subjects as legal or economic
history, political science or sociology, begins. Such agree-
ment is neither possible nor necessary; there will always
be debatable ground. But one cannot go far upon the
wrong road, if he keep his eye fixed constantly upon the
sole purpose of his study—an understanding of how the
present English government has come to be what it is and
how in recent centuries it has touched and influenced
political thought and growth throughout the world.
tinental influences. Yet, speaking broadly, this contrast between the
insular and continental backgrounds holds true.