PROFESSOR OF LAW IN THE UNIVERSITY OF WARSAW LONDON: HENRY FROWDE, AMEN CORNER 1902 [All rights reserved] HA PREFACE AVING been honoured by the invitation of the Curators of the Taylor Institution to deliver lectures on some Slavonic subject, I chose the sources of the Slavonic Law, because the whole political, social, and economical life of a society is most clearly reflected in the legal history. But the first step to an independent knowledge of such a history is a survey of the legal documents, their critical editions and scientific investigations. A serious acquaintance with the sources of the Slavonic Law can be only attained by reading them, which is much more accessible to a foreigner than the study of the various Slavonic legal histories, because a great many manuscripts are written in Latin. As the development of the Slavonic nations greatly differs from the development of other European peoples, it seemed to me necessary to add a little sketch of their political and social histories; the history of the sources, I thought, could only be made interesting to some degree on the broad basis of the transformations of the different Slavonic states and societies. |