GLA. The volume has internal evidence of having been written in the latter part of the twelfth century, and is pretty generally ascribed to the second of the two Glanvilles, who were Judges in the reign of Hen. II. The resemblence between Glanville and the Regiam Majeslatem, leaves little doubt but that one was popied from the other, and the question of origi- nality between them has been several times mooted. Mr. Reeves remarks, that upon a comparison of the account given of things in the Regiam Majeslntcm, and in Glanville, it plainly appears that the Scotch author is more clear, explicit, and defined ; and that he writes very often with a view to explain the other, in the same manner in which the writer of our Fleta explains his predecessor, Bracton. This is remarkable in numberless instances all through the book, and is, perhaps, as decisive a mark of a copy as can be. This opinion is strengthened by Mr. Da- vidson's researches, in an Essay written upon the originality of the two productions, who also concludes that Glanville's is the elder performance. Glanville's is the earliest extant treatise in which it was attempted to collect the customs, and practical workings of that system of jurispru- dence, that has since exercised such an influence over the affairs of man- kind and now governs half the globe ; though it is not without some obligations to the Civil law. With the exception of the Decreium, it was the earliest systematic legal treatise that appeared after the dissolu- tion of the Roman Empire, and though now valueless in a practical sense, it will not cease to be regarded as a venerable historical monu- ment, the first collected rays of the old Common Law. Though of great authority in former times, the work remained in manuscript for more than three centuries, and was finally printed by the "perswasion and procurement of Sir William Staunford, a grave and learned judge, the author of the well known treatise on the Prerogative of the Crown." With the exception of a solitary dictum in Plowden, at a time when it was the fashion to consider Bracton and Glanville not as authority, but to be quoted, if at all, only for ornament in discourse; Glanville's work is relied upon as authority, both by Coke, Spelnian, Selden, Hale, Blackstone, and others. By Coke, it is constantly cited, who says the author profoundly wrote upon the laws of England, " whom I cite many times in these Reports, for the fruit which I confess myself to have reaped out of the fair fields of his labors ;" and Mr. Reeves did not hesitate to incorporate the most of Glanville in his History of the Com- mon Law. A learned foreigner, M. Hoiiard, who has annotated and caused to be re-printed several of the early English writers, draws the following comparison between Glanville and Littleton — Voici I'opi- nion que j'ai conQue du recueil de Glanville. II indique la methode la plus sure pour faire executer la loi ; et Littleton nous instruit des causes & du but de cette methode. Celuici propose toutes les maximes; & la compilation de Glanville comprend toutes les Procedures propres a mettre ces maximes en action. Ces deux ouvrages reunis suflisent pour 22 337
