Like the English language, English law may be regarded as the fusion of two great cultural forces—the Germanic “folk-laws,” expressed in the early dooms of Æthelberht (c. 600) and in the laws of Alfred and Canute; and Roman law, as interpreted by the Norman conquerors, and set forth in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by Glanvill and Bracton. From this fusion has developed a body of law which, in scope and influence, is probably without parallel in modern history. It is interesting to see how many of its basic principles find expression in the common proverbial wisdom of the folk. These proverbs correspond, on a popular level, to the Latin legal maxims of the learned, which represent the concentrated experience of generations of lawyers.