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be tried, wherein the shireeve is constituted judge by the king's writ to do right, viz. of services and customs of debt, and other disputes without number." And Fleta: "In the county there is held a twofold court, for the king has his, and the judge his, viz. the shireeve, whensoever such a jurisdiction is committed to him by writ whereby he hath a record, the precept being to him, and not to the suiters of the county, that he shall proceed according to right therein. This court also is of the nature of a court baron, or the king's, which is held in some of his manors where the shireeve is no other than a bailiff or fermour of the king's, and where wrong judgments, pronounced by the suiters without the shireeve, are to be punished."

In the time of the Saxons not only causes of great moment were heard and determined in this court, but the justiciarius Anglia himself sat there frequently, as appears from what has been before said of Ægelwyn, who was lotius Angliæ aldermanus regnante rege Edgaro; and this custom continued a considerable time after the conquest, though it has been many ages since disused: for in the great trial between Lanfrank archbishop of Canterbury, and Odo the king's brother, before mentioned, which was in the county court of Kent, at that time held at Pinendenie, sat Geoffry bishop of Constance, justice of England, with other bishops, and many barons".

The judges in these courts at that time were only the above-named Geoffry, Egelric bishop of

• Origines Juridiciales.

Chichester, and Hamon the sheriff of the county, as appears by a grant of archbishop Anselm to the monks of Rochester, preserved in the Cotton library.

In this court matters of title were likewise frequently tried, a cause of that kind occurring in the reign of Stephen between Raphe Picot, then sheriff of Kent, and the monks of Canterbury", in pleno auditu comitatus, in the full hearing of the county. Agreements upon disputes and controversies for title of land were also recorded in the same court 8, as well as bargains and sales of land anciently made there: of the latter, an instance may be produced upwards of six hundred years ago, when Harvisia de Iselham, with Raphe her husband, and Roger their son and heir, did pass the grant of their land of Iselham to William Briwer, in the county court of Devon.

By the statute 2 Ed. VI. c. 25. no county court shall be adjourned longer than for one month, consisting of twenty-eight days. And this was also the ancient usage, as appears from the laws of king Edward the Elder before mentioned.

The county court was sometimes held in the church, as appears from a passage in an ancient writer, respecting a priest who lay with his wife the night before he was to sing mass, which it seems he ought not to have done. "Quadam die," &c. "Upon a certain day many persons, as well noble as other, met together (at the church) early in the morning to

7 Ex vet. MS. in bibl. Cotton. Faustinæ, b. 6. n. 19.
• Ex Registro de Leeston in bibl. Cotton. f. 38. a. b.
9 Hist. S. Dunelm. col. 35. 7.

F

plead; but before the pleading began, they inquired for the priest to say mass," &c. This is further confirmed by the testimony of Gervasius Dorobernensis, who, describing the cathedral church of Canterbury, in speaking of the south door, says, "which place, in the old laws of the kingdom, is often expressed by name, at which also all disputes of the whole kingdom, whether in the hundred or county, were wont to be tried," &c.

This practice was not totally discontinued for a long time after, as is evident from certain ecclesiastical constitutions made in a synod held at Exeter in anno 1287 (15 Ed. I.) by Peter de Wivill, then bishop of that diocess, when it was (inter alia) decreed that secular pleas should not be held in the church or churchyard. The like prohibition may be found in a synod held at Winchester about that time'.

"Thus we may see (says judge Blackstone) the policy of our ancient constitution, as regulated and established by the great Alfred, was to bring justice home to every man's door, by constituting as many courts of judicature as there are manors and townships in the kingdom, wherein injuries were redressed in an easy and expeditious manner by the suffrage of neighbours and friends. These little courts, however, communicated with others of a larger jurisdiction, and those again with others of a still greater power, ascending gradually from the lowest to

Ex cod. MS. in bibl. Cotton. Othonis, a. 15. fol. 144. a.

the supreme courts, which were respectively constituted to correct the errors of the inferior ones, and to determine such causes as by reason of their weight and difficulty demanded a more solemn discussion:"the source of justice thus flowing in large streams from the king as the fountain to his superior courts of ecord, and being then subdivided into smaller channels till the whole and every part of the kingdom were plentifully watered and refreshed. These inferior courts, at least the name and form of them, still continue in our legal constitution; but as the superior courts of record have in practice obtained a concurrent original jurisdiction with them, and as there is besides a power of removing plaints or actions thither from all the inferior jurisdictions; upon these accounts (among others), it has happened that these petty tribunals have fallen into decay, and almost into oblivion; whether for the better or the worse, may be matter of some speculation, when we consider on the one hand the increase of expense and delay, and on the other the more upright and impartial decision that follow this change of jurisdiction."

OF THE FOUR GREAT COURTS.

THE CHANCERY.

It is the opinion of several learned men, as Cambden, Dr. Cowell, in his Interpreter, &c. that this court had its name originally from certain bars of wood or iron, laid one over another crosswise like a lattice,

with which it was environed to keep off the press of people, and yet afford a view to the officers who presided therein, such gates or cross bars being by the Latins called cancelli, which, as some think, was the reason why those places that were only peculiar to the priest, being by the appointment of pope Felix3 severed from the body of our churches for that purpose, with certain grates or lattices, were called chancels.

It has been thought that the chancellor's office originally was to register the acts and decrees of the judges, qui conscribendis et excipiendis judicium actis dant operam, as says Lupanus. Pytheus also supposes that he was anciently the same as we now call secretarius. But the office and name of chancellor, however derived, was certainly known, not only in this kingdom, but in the courts of the Roman emperors, where it originally seems to have signified, according to the above opinions, a chief scribe or secretary, who was afterwards invested with several judicial powers, and a general superintendency of the rest of the officers of the prince*.

The high court of chancery is, in matters of civil property, the most important of any of the king's superior and original courts of justice: it has its name of chancery, cancellaria, from the judge who presides here, the lord chancellor or cancellarius, who, sir Edward Coke informs us, is so termed a cancellando, from cancelling the king's letters patent when granted contrary to law, which is the highest point of his jurisdiction.-Blackstone.

3 M. Paris.

4" From the Roman empire, this title passed to the Roman church, ever emulous of imperial state; and hence every bishop has to this day his chancellor, the principal judge of his consis

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