Excerpt from Law and Politics in the Middle Ages: With a Synoptic Table of Sources The Middle Ages are Middle only in a sense. They are Middle to us, whom a long-established tradition has taught to regard History as beginning with the foundation of Rome, and the emergence into political life of the Grecian States. But in another, and important sense, they are very Early Ages indeed. They are the foundation epoch of that group of communities, so alike in essentials, so manifestly different in detail, which, for want of a better name, we call Teutonic, and which at the present day control the destinies, not only of Western Europe, but of lands beyond the great seas, of which their founders never dreamed. They have produced a civilization wholly unlike any civilization which has preceded it, a civilization which, on its political side at least, is not only the latest, but, as there is sober reason to believe, the best in the world's history. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.