Frederic William Maitland

Frederic William Maitland (1850–1906) was an English legal historian, generally regarded as the greatest historian of English law. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he practiced at the bar before returning to Cambridge, where he became Downing Professor of the Laws of England in 1888. He founded the Selden Society to publish legal records, wrote with Frederick Pollock the History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, and produced Domesday Book and Beyond, Township and Borough, and Roman Canon Law in the Church of England. Ill health drove him to winter in the Canary Islands, where he died. His prose is admired for its wit and precision.