Henry James Sumner Maine


Maine, Henry James Sumner

 

Born Aug. 15, 1822, in Kelso, Roxburgh; died Feb. 3, 1888, in Cannes, France. British jurist and legal historian.

A Scot by birth, Maine studied at Cambridge University, where from 1847 to 1854 and again from 1887 he was a professor. At the same time, he practiced law. From 1863 to 1869 he was a member of the council to the governor-general of India and served as vice-chancellor of the University of Calcutta. Maine was a professor at Oxford University from 1869 to 1887. In his research he used the comparative-historical method. On the basis of a study of Hindu, Roman, German, ancient Irish, and Slavic law, he endeavored to create a comprehensive picture of the development of law and early social institutions among the Indo-European peoples. Maine applied the basic aspects of G. L. Maurer’s communal theory to many peoples.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
Drevnee pravo .... St. Petersburg, 1873.
Derevenskie obshchiny na Vostoke i Zapade. St. Petersburg, 1874.
Drevneishaia istoriia uchrezhdenii: Lektsii. St. Petersburg, 1876.
Drevnii zakon i obychai: Issledovanie po istorii drevnego prava. Moscow, 1884.

REFERENCES

Marx, K. , and F. Engels. Soch, 2nd ed., vol. 19, p. 402.
Vinogradov, P. G. “Uchenie sera Genri Mena.” Nauchnoe slowo, 1904, book 8.