Henry Sumner Maine

Sir Henry James Sumner Maine, who lived from 1822 to 1888, was a British jurist and legal historian educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, recognized as a founder of the fields of legal anthropology and comparative legal history. His 1861 book Ancient Law set out the influential thesis that legal systems evolve from status to contract, meaning that ancient societies bound individuals through fixed inherited social positions while progressive modern societies increasingly treat individuals as free agents able to bind themselves through voluntary agreement. He held the Regius Professorship of Civil Law at Cambridge from 1847 to 1854, served as legal member of the Council of India from 1862 to 1869 shaping colonial legal governance, then held the chair of Historical and Comparative Jurisprudence at Oxford from 1869 to 1877 before returning to Cambridge as Master of Trinity Hall and, from 1887, as Whewell Professor of International Law.