ON THK INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM. 4-^ 



several other courts, iiamely the Court of Chancery under Ihe Lord 

 High Chancellor now posesshig certain high political duties as well as 

 the sole jurisdiction in Equity; the Court of Common Pleas for the 

 trial of all civil causes at law between private subjects ; the Court of 

 Exchequer for the management of the Crown revenues, and recovery 

 of the regal dues and debts; and the Court of King's Bench (so 

 called because originally held before the King in person) retaining 

 all the criminal jurisdiction and so much of the civil as was not given 

 to the other courts. These three common law courts now, however, 

 possess equal and concurrent authority in all matters except Pleas of 

 the Crown (criminal cases j which belong exclusively to the King's 

 Bench, and revenue cases which still lie within the separate jurisdic- 

 tion of the Exchequer. The Court of Exchequer is indeed as old 

 as the Aula Regia itself, of which it originally formed apart, it being 

 then held before certain of the militaiy barons of the kingdom. Thus 

 although all the other Judges of the common law courts have always 

 been styled and still are called Justices, this court alone preserves 

 the evidences of its original feudal constitution by continuing to its 

 judges the same name as that they at first bore, (independently of 

 their judicial functions,) namely. Barons. This court derives its 

 name from Scaccharium, the chequered cloth with which its table is 

 covered, and wherein by means of counters scored thereon the royal 

 accounts used to be made up. It is divided into two branches, 

 namely, that for the receipt and management of the Exchequer, and 

 secondly the administration of civil justice. The business of the 

 former, in point of fact, is arranged elsewhere, the Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer being a financial minister of the Crown, exclusive of any 

 legal functions ; but yet on the commencement of each of the four 

 annual law terms, that oflicer with another one called the Cursitor 

 Baron (not a law^'er necessarily) and the chief Puisne Barons of the 

 judicial court open the court in olden foim and pei-petuate the memo- 

 rial of its feudal origin. 



The modern practice of these courts does not now exhibit many 

 mementos of the institutions of which I am treating : the old forms 

 of action for recovery of landed property, and which in their nature 

 and language at once reminded us of the feudal ages, having either 



