Political Theories of the Middle Age [1913]

Gierke [1841-1921] was one of the most influential legal scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries. As a jurist, he played an important role in the creation of Germany's 1900 Civil Code and the Weimar 1919 Constitution. As a legal historian, he was one of the first to study the role of social groups and the importance of associations in German life. Political Theories of the Middle Age is drawn from his definitive four-volume study on that subject, Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht [The German Law of Associations]. Maitland held this work in the highest esteem, not just for its command of sources, but for its conceptual framework. As he states in his introductory essay, which adds valuable insight into the nature of the state in Germany and England, it creates a perspective in which "the outlines are large, the strokes are firm, and medieval appears as an introduction to modern thought."