His family shared in his success. No less than seven of his near relatives held high judicial position under Henry or his sons. Few other families have rendered greater service to England than that of Ranulph de Glanville, ambassador, administrator, general, judge and jurist.
[Incidents of Glanville’s life and character are reported in all the chroniclers of the time. Especially valuable are the accounts in Hoveden, Benedictus Abbas, Giraldus Cambrensis, Newburgh, Richard of Devizes, and Diceto. The fullest modern sketch of his life is by Professor Maitland, in the Dictionary of National Biography. Other modern biographies are those of Foss (Judges of England, i, 376); Thomas Wright (Biographia Britannica, 275); Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chief Justices, i, 19); and Professor Gross (Sources and Literature of English History, 315).
Many interesting documents bearing on Glanville’s genealogy and his property are printed in Glanville-Richards’ “Records of the Anglo-Norman House of Glanville.”]
II. THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE TREATISE.
The following “Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom of England,” was published between 1187 and 1189; it mentions a fine made in the former year, and it is filled with references to Henry, as then King. It had a high contemporary reputation. Copies of the book were multiplied, and many manuscripts still exist. It forms part of several collections of laws made by contemporaries of Glanville himself. It was translated, or partly translated, into French immediately after Glanville’s death, and it was revised and an attempt made to bring it down to date two generations later. It was finally superseded by Bracton’s completer and more elaborate treatise.
The work itself is anonymous, the manuscripts stating only that it was composed in the time of Henry II., “Glanville then holding the helm of justice.” Early tradition, however, asserts that it was written by Glanville himself, and that fact was accepted as undoubted from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century. Modern scholars have expressed doubt of it. Littleton’s objection (in his “Life of Henry II.”) that Glanville could not have written the book because he was not in orders, may be dismissed at once. The greater officers of the administration, whether in orders or not, must have had sufficient Latin to dictate a Latin treatise to a clerk, and Glanville was particularly commended for his eloquence by more than one contemporary. Hunter’s objection (in the preface to his “Fines”) is that Glanville, at the time the treatise was written, was too busy in public affairs to have composed such a work, and he suggests that the author may have been William de Glanville, a justice in the next reign; who was, in fact, Glanville’s son, and (from 1186) his secretary. But this is the merest guess. Professor Maitland conjectures (for a rather fanciful reason, perhaps) that the author may have been Hubert Walter. Liebermann, on the other hand, defends Glanville’s authorship. Certainly there is little external proof that Glanville was the author of the treatise, though it must have been written by some one in high position and repute to have obtained so immediate a success. The internal evidence does not lead us much further. The style is that of a person speaking with authority, but not necessarily the authority of the Chief Justiciar himself. The claim of Hubert Walter to the authorship cannot be dismissed without further examination.
Hubert was a nephew of Glanville’s wife; according to one account, of Glanville himself, Glanville’s younger brother having married his wife’s sister. Whether Hervey Walter, Hubert’s father, was really, as this account has it, Hervey de Glanville or not, it is certain that Hubert was brought up in intimacy with Glanville’s family, became his secretary, and was regarded by him as a valued counsellor. He was made Dean of York in 1186, being succeeded as secretary by Glanville’s son William. He soon became Bishop of Salisbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, and later Chief Justiciar and Chancellor of the Kingdom. He is described as a man of foresight and wisdom; it is said of him that his heart was in human affairs rather than divine, and that he knew all the laws of the kingdom. He was, however, a man “of little eloquence;” indeed, one chronicler ridicules his Latin style.
Did Glanville write the whole treatise? or did Hubert Walter write it? Or did they collaborate on it? Perhaps we can reach a conjectural conclusion by a more careful examination of the treatise itself.
The most striking feature of the treatise is, that it is based upon a collection of writs. Omitting the [Introduction] and the [last book], on Pleas of the Crown, just one-third of the chapters into which it is divided consists of writs. These are of all kinds, directed to Lords’ Courts, to County Courts, and to Ecclesiastical Courts, as well as writs returnable in the King’s Courts. Later writers have made free use of writs, but here they are the skeleton of the whole treatise. They fulfil the function of judgment-rolls in Bracton’s book, and of decisions in Coke and later writers. The collection of these eighty writs must have been a work of several years, since some of the writs were certainly of rare occurrence. The Chief Justice, or his clerk, attested all the writs, and either of them had both opportunity and reason for making such a collection; hardly another man in the kingdom would have been likely to do it.
A large part of the treatise is written in a crabbed and inelegant, though usually a clear style. In a few passages, however, near the beginning of the book, we find an elevation of thought and elegance of diction often admired and imitated. The [Introduction], in particular, and the [seventh chapter of the second book], in praise of the assize (which, according to tradition, Glanville had a hand in inventing, or, at least, in establishing), are worthy of a man “sapiens simul et eloquens”; in sharp contrast with other parts of the work, which indicate an author who “omnia regni novit jura,” but was surely “non eloquio pollens.”