Sir Henry Sumner Maine

Sir Henry James Sumner Maine (1822–1888) was an English jurist and legal historian. Educated at Christ's Hospital and Pembroke College, Cambridge, he became Regius Professor of Civil Law at Cambridge at twenty-five. His Ancient Law (1861), with its famous thesis that progressive societies move from status to contract, founded the comparative and historical study of law and society. He spent seven years in India as legal member of the viceroy's council, helping to codify Indian law, and on his return held chairs of jurisprudence and international law at Oxford and Cambridge. His later books include Village Communities and Popular Government.