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But although English society was divided by sharp lines, and broad intervals, it was not a system of caste either in the stricter or in the looser sense. It had much elasticity in practice, and the boundaries between the ranks were passable.

— William Stubbs The Constitutional History of England in its Origin and Development, Vol. I (1874)

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More quotes by William Stubbs

England alone has a history in which ancient freedom has made its way through, and utilised all that is good in feudalism, widening from precedent to precedent into perfect political liberty.

Lectures on Early English History (1906)

Among the first truths which the historical student, or indeed any scientific scholar, learns to recognise, this is perhaps the most important, that no theory or principle works in isolation.

The Constitutional History of England in its Origin and Development, Vol. I (1874)

It is that the essence of the historical study is in the working out the continuity of the subject, while the essence of the legal study is in the reducing of it all to certain theoretic principles.

Lectures on Early English History (1906)

[T]he whole of the constitutional history of England is little more than a commentary on Magna Carta.

The Constitutional History of England in its Origin and Development, Vol. I (1874)

No legislation turned the free owner into the feudal tenant: whatever changes in that direction took place were the result of individual acts, or of very gradual changes of custom arising indirectly from the fact that other relations were assuming a territorial character.

The Constitutional History of England in its Origin and Development, Vol. I (1874)

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