Book excerpt: Vinogradoff, Sir Paul. English Society in the Eleventh Century: Essays in English Mediaeval History. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1908. xii, 599 pp. Reprint available February, 2005 by the Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-476-2. Cloth. $95. * One of the principal studies by the eminent legal scholar, it is commended by Holdsworth in The Historians of English Law as "a most valuable historical analysis of the forces which were creating mediaeval society in England" (86-87). Vinogradoff [1854-1925] considers the Old English, Danish and Norman elements that shaped English society during one of its most dynamic phases. Careful attention is paid to the influence of political factors and public law on social life and how innovations in husbandry and other economic factors influenced the development of private law.