Political Theories of the Middle Age, by Otto Gierke, translated with an introduction by Frederic William Maitland. One of the world's great scholars in the hisotry of political ideas, Otto Von Gierke (1844-1921) was professor of law at the University of Berlin, of Breslau, and of Heidelberg, and produced monumental studies in the interpretation of legal history. In the present volume, Gierke gives his sharply definitive treatment of the basic political tenets up to the Renaissance.