Out of Print
In the Ford lectures which he delivered at Oxford in 1897, Sir William Maitland brought to the study of the township and, borough of Cambridge the same formidable array of learning he was later to display in expounding the British Constitution; But the learning, though formidable, is lightly worn. Maitland. loved Cambridge, and his writing though scholarly, is enthusiastic and graceful.
His subject is the houses and fields of medieval Cambridge, the growth and transfer of property, the part played in property owning by local families, the church and the borough, and the survey of documentary evidence.
In his preface to the lectures, Maitland was concerned lest he had divided his attention between the domains of economic history and of law. But he excuses himself by saying I wish. to illustrate the close inter-dependence of fact and theory, for it seems to me that the coming historian of our English towns must, among his other tasks, set himself to study and explain as two phases of one process, the transition from rural to urban habits and the evolution among the townsmen of that kind and that degree of unity which are corporateness and personality.
The personality of Cambridge emerges clearly from Maitland's lectures and Cambridge enthusiasts as well its medievaists have reason to be grateful that his researches are more available.
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