Immediately acclaimed as one of the most important contributions to European legal history, Felony and Misdemeanor has a broader scope than its title suggests. Grounded in social and political history, it is a study of the legal institutions of the Frankish Empire, Normandy and pre-conquest England and their contributions to the formation of Anglo-American private law, public law and judicial administration. In a 1938 review for the Harvard Law Review, Max Radin said it was "a first-rate achievement" (51:1465). Complete in itself, this work was intended to have a second volume, which was never published. "[A] very able piece of work on a difficult topic... It places Professor Goebel in the front rank of legal historians"W.S. HoldsworthThe University of Toronto Law Journal 3, no. 1 (1939): 167 "[A]n outstanding contribution to historical jurisprudence"Hermann KantorowiczThe Cambridge Law Journal 6, no. 3 (1938): 450 "[A]n illuminating interpretation of the dark ages of legal history and one that commends itself readily to the historian"Helen M. CamThe American Historical Review 43, no. 3 (1938): 583-584 xxix, 455, [1] pp.