46 ON THE INFLUENCE OV FEUDALISM, 



fallen into disuse or been recently abolished : for instance, the right 

 of trial by wager oi battle, or personal duel, having only been abolish- 

 ed by statute in 1819, and the writ of right — the antiquated mode of 

 proving a tille to landed property, and wherein the jury consisted of 

 four knights, spurred and armed, along with the other recognitors, 

 having been tried last year for the last time. 



The Court of Common Pleas still retains a badge of ancient feudal 

 spirit, where in imitation of the old chivalric code that none but a 

 knight should fi^i^ht with a knight, so here, in this arena of legal 

 contest, none buta serjeant at law is allowed to cope with a Serjeant; 

 none b\it an advocate of the coif being permitted there to plead. 

 This may perhaps be deemed by some of you as a straining to dis- 

 cover feudal originals in our modern institutions ; be that as it may, 

 my assertion is fortified by that of a noble and learned peer, who in 

 the judicial privy council lately assigned this as the true original 

 cause of the Serjeants' privilege. 



On the dissolution of the Aula Regia the Barons of Parliament 

 who were constituent members of that high court, did not forget their 

 dignity nor part with all jurisdiction as a superior court; for they 

 with the Lord High Steward as their president were then constituted, 

 and now remain, the only tribunal for the trial of peers accused of 

 crime ; and the barons also reserved to themselves, sitting in parlia- 

 ment, the right of reviewing, in the last resort, the sentences or judg- 

 ments of other courts. This is the feudal origin of the present 

 jurisdiction of the House of Lords as a court of Appeal. 



I have thus spoken of the superior Courts of Record; but there 

 was one other court carved out of the Aula Regia, which bore more 

 peculiar marks of the feudal ages than any other, namely the Court 

 of Chivalry, a court of honour, over which the High Constable and 

 Lord Marshall presided. The statute 13 Richard IL, chap. 2, 

 declared this to be the jurisdiction of this court, '* That it had cog- 

 nizance of contracts touching deeds of arms or of war, within the 

 realm, which cannot be determined by the common law, tog ther 

 with other usages and customs to the same matters appertaining," 

 under which latter words, its civil jurisdiction extended to two points, 

 tbe redressing of injuries of honour, and the encroachments in 



