Constitutional history

Constitutional history is the area of historical study covering both written constitutions and uncodified constitutions, and became an academic discipline during the 19th century. The Oxford Companion to Law (1980) defined it as the study of the "origins, evolution and historical development" of the constitution of a community.[1]

The English term is attributed to Henry Hallam, in his 1827 work The Constitutional History of England.[2] It overlaps legal history and political history. For uncodified constitutions, the status of documents seen as contributing to the formation of a constitution has an aspect of diplomatics.

By the beginning of the 20th century, constitutional history, associated strongly with the "Victorian manner" in historiography, had come under criticism that questioned its relevance.[3] Both before and after the period of so-called "traditional constitutional history" in the English-speaking world, its themes in political history have been seriously contested.

See Category:Constitutional history.

  1. ^ Walker, David Maxwell (1980). The Oxford Companion to Law. Oxford University Press. p. 279. ISBN 978-0-19-866110-8.
  2. ^ Brundage, Anthony Leon (6 October 2015). British Historians and National Identity: From Hume to Churchill. Routledge. p. 207. ISBN 978-1-317-31711-1.
  3. ^ Blaas, P. B. M. (1978). Continuity and Anachronism: Parliamentary and Constitutional Development in Whig Historiography and in the Anti-Whig Reaction Between 1890 and 1930. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 36. ISBN 978-94-009-9712-7.