PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 55 



were peculiarly remarkable for their proficiency in the study of the law. 

 . . . The judges therefore were usually created out of the sacred order, as 

 was likewise the case among the Normans; and all the inferior offices 

 were supplied by the lower clergy, which has occasioned their successoi*s 

 to be denominated clerks to this day." 



But with the growth of papal power a change began. As writes 

 the author just quoted, Stephen 



'* It soon became an established maxim in the papal system of policy, that 

 all ecclesiastical persons, and all ecclesiastical causes, should be solely and 

 entirely subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction only.'' 



After the conquest, when shoals of foreign clergy came over, and 

 when they and the pre-existing monastic clergy were bribed 

 by endowments to support the Conqueror, the papal policy pre- 

 vailed so far as to separate the ecclesiastical court from the 

 civil court ; after which " the Saxon laws were soon overborne 

 by the Norman justiciaries." In subsequent reigns, according 

 to Hallam 



" the clergy combined its study [i. e., the Roman law] with that of their 

 own canons; it was a maxim that every canonist must be a civilian, and 

 that no one could be a good civilian unless he were also a canonist." 

 Along with acceptance of the doctrine that the Christian high 

 priest, the pope, was an oracle through whom God spoke, there 

 was established in Christendom a theory of law like that held by 

 ancient peoples: laws were divine dicta and priests divinely au- 

 thorized interpreters of them. Under these circumstances the 

 ecclesiastical courts extended their jurisdiction to secular causes ; 

 until, gradually, the secular courts were almost deprived of 

 power : the removal of criminal clerics from secular jurisdiction 

 and the penalty of excommunication on those who in any serious 

 way opposed the clerical power, being of course efficient weapons. 

 The condition of things then existing is well shown by the fol- 

 lowing statement of Prof. Maitland : 



" If we look back to Richard I.'s reign we may see, as the highest tem- 

 poral court of the realm, a court chiefly composed of ecclesiastics, presided 

 over by an archbishop, who is also Chief Justiciar; he will have at his side 

 two or three bishops, two or three archdeacons, and but two or three lay- 

 men. The greatest judges even of Henry III.'s reign are ecclesiastics, 

 though by this time it has become scandalous for a bishop to do much sec- 

 ular justice." 



Not only were priests the judges and the interpreters of law, 

 but they at one time discharged subordinate legal functions. In 

 Germany, according to Stolzel, the notarial profession was in the 

 hands of ecclesiastics. France, during the 13th century, furnished 

 like evidence. Clerics played the parts of procureurs or attorneys, 

 according to Fournier, who says : 



"les ecclesiastiques ne pouvait, en principe, accepter ces fonctions que pour 

 representer les pauvres, les eglises, ou dans les causes spirituelles. " 



