301 



COURTS. 



COURTS. 



303 



cases, in which he had the same powers that the sheriff exercised in his 

 tourn, was called the Leet. 



The same powers which were exercised over a particular manor by 

 the court baron and court leet were also exercised over particular hun- 

 dreds by the hundred court and the leet of the hundred. But the 

 number of these courts was much diminished by stat. 14 Edward III., 

 by which all hundreds, except such as were of estate in fee, were 

 rejoined (as to the bailiwick of the same) to the counties at large. 



Besides these courts of inferior jurisdiction, there was also a supreme 

 tribunal, in which the king presided. In the Saxon age, and for some 

 time after, the legislative, the administrative, and the judicial functions 

 of the government had not been separated ; and the Wittena-gemote, 

 or meeting of the wise, was consulted by the monarch in all these 

 departments indiscriminately. The Anglo-Saxon king had the same 

 jurisdiction over his thanes that they had over their own vassals. He 

 punished all enormous crimes committed against the king's peace. His 

 court was likewise open to all those to whom justice had been refused 

 in the inferior tribunals ; and he had the power of punishing the judges 

 if they pronounced an iniquitous sentence. It also seems probable that 

 the king's court was a court of appeal, in which the judgments of all 

 other tribunals, if erroneous, might be reversed. 



The Norman Conquest does not seem to have produced any imme- 

 diate change in the constitution of this national assembly, which 

 thenceforth became more known as the Great Council. Its members 

 exercised the same varied functions as under the Saxons ; but when 

 they sat in their judicial capacity, they had the assistance of the great 

 officers of state and certain persons learned in the law, styled Justiciars, 

 or Justices. William the Conqueror also created an officer to preside 

 over judicial business, under the title of Chief Justiciar. The functions 

 of this tribunal thus became gradually separated from the general 

 business of the grand council ; and from being held in the hall of the 

 king's palace it was distinguished by the style of Aula Regis. A great 

 distinction was drawn between this and all the courts of Saxon origin, 

 from the mode of authenticating its proceedings. There were at this 

 time no written memorials of legal proceedings, and indeed of few other 

 public acts ; and when it was necessary to establish any judgment or 

 statute which had been made by the king assisted by his council, it 

 was usual to call the testimony of some of the nobles who were present 

 to bear recurd of the fact. In progress of time, all such proceedings 

 were written down at the time on parchment, the nobles present signing 

 their names as witnesses, and so bearing record of the truth of what 

 was there alleged. The writing itself was called a record ; and it was 

 held to be evidence so conclusive that, when produced, nothing was 

 allowed to be alleged in derogation of it. The entry of proceedings on 

 record was adopted in the judicial, as well as in the other departments 

 of the great council, and hence the Aula Regis became distinguished 

 as a mnrl of record. The power and importance of the Aula Regis 

 rapidly increased. It not only maintained the former powers of the 

 council in punishing offences against the public, in controlling the pro- 

 ceedings of inferior courts, and in deciding on questions relating to the 

 revenue of the king, but it engrossed also a great portion of the 

 i non pleas," or causes between party and party. And though we 

 uppose that it was only the more important causes that were 

 taken into the Aula Regis, yet as early as the reign of Edward I., when 

 the jurisdiction nf the county courts wag confined to 40., all actions 

 abi ive that amount were brought into the king's courts. 



The Aula Regis seems at a very early period to have been distin- 

 guished an exercising three several capacities, according to the different 

 natures of the causes that were brought before it, which are treated of 

 in our earlier legal writers as pleas of the king, common pleas, and 

 pleas of the exchequer. The bond of connection between these several 

 jurisdictions was the chief justiciar, who presided over all of them. 

 But in the reign of Edward III. this office was abolished, and thus 

 were finally destroyed the unity of the Aula Regis and its connection 

 with the grand council, which became henceforth essentially a legis- 

 lative body ; and though it still retains traces of its original functions 

 in it* title of the High. Court of Parliament, yet it has ever since ceased 

 to exercise any judicial powers, except in cases of impeachment, or as a 

 court of ultimate appeal. On the dissolution of the Aula Regis, the 

 three courts of the King's Bench, the Common Pleas, and the Exchequer, 

 had each of them a perfectly distinct and separate existence. The Court 

 of King's Bench had the control of all the inferior tribunals and the 

 cognisance of all trespasses against the king's peace ; the Court of 

 Exchequer had cognisance of all cases relating to the revenue ; and 

 the Court of Common Pleas was the only tribunal for causes of a purely 

 civil nature between private persons. The courts of King's Bench and 

 Exchequer still retain each of them its peculiar jurisdiction ; and the 

 Common Pleas is still the only court in Westminster in which a real 

 action can be tried ; but the great mass of causes between party and 

 party may now be brought indiscriminately in any of the three courts. 

 Tim mode in which the King's Bench and the Exchequer originally 

 v fictitious proceedings to appropriate to themselves a share 

 in thi! |>t:culiar jurisdiction of the Common Pleas will be found in the 

 accounts given of those courts. 



moned his great council to sit at the three feasts of Easter, Whitsun- 



tide, and Christmas, in three different parts of the kingdom : Win- 

 chester, Westminster, and Gloucester. But when the great mass of 

 the legal business of the country was brought into the king's courts at 

 Westminster it became necessary to take some more efficient measures 

 for the trial of causes in the country. 



The first expedient adopted was to appoint itinerant judges, Justices 

 in Eyre, who travelled through the kingdom, holding plea of all causes 

 civil or criminal, and in most respects discharging the office of the 

 superior courts. These itinera or eyres usually took place after an 

 interval of seven years. From them we have our modern assizes ; the 

 immediate origin of which was a statute of Edward I., which in order 

 to prevent the expense of bringing up juries to the courts at West- 

 minster, provided that certain judges of those courts should be ap- 

 pointed to make circuits twice a year for the trial of issues, upon which 

 judgment was to be given in the court above. These justices are 

 appointed by commissions of Oyer and Terminer and of gaol delivery, 

 which authorise them to try criminals. They have also a commission 

 of the peace, and a commission of assize, under which they used to try 

 a peculiar species of action called assizes. These actions have long 

 been obsolete ; but the name of assizes is still given to the sittings 

 of the justices on circuit under their several commissions. 



Under the Norman kings the fines, amerciaments, and forfeitures in 

 the courts constituted a considerable portion of the revenue, and the 

 administration of justice was held to be an important branch of the 

 royal prerogative. But, like other branches of the prerogative, we 

 sometimes find it in the hands of a subject, either by grant from the 

 crown, or by prescription, which, in the eye of the law, supposes a 

 grant, though such supposition is often at variance with probability ; 

 within the counties palatine and other royal franchises, the earls or 

 lords had regal jurisdiction, saving the supreme dominion of the crown. 

 They had the same right as the king to pardon offences; they appointed 

 judges of eyre, assize, and gaol delivery, and justices of the peace ; all 

 legal proceedings were made in their name, and offences were. said to 

 be committed against their peace, as in other places against the peace 

 of the king. These royal prerogatives were, for the most part, re- 

 annexed to the crown by stat. 27 Henry VIII. ; but the form of the 

 judicial establishment still remained. The County Palatine of Pem- 

 broke was abolished by the same statute, and the County Palatine of 

 Hallamshire shared the same fate in the reign of Elizabeth. The 

 Counties Palatine of Chester and Lancaster are still in existence, but 

 have long ceased to be in the hands of subjects. The palatinate 

 jurisdiction of Durham continued to our own day to be possessed by 

 the bishop, but this also has been vested in the crown. By another 

 statute the secular jurisdiction of the bishop of Ely has been abolished. 



But besides these palatinate jurisdictions, created to increase the 

 power and gratify the pride of the nobles on whom they were conferred, 

 the crown has also from time to time erected courts, with a jurisdic- 

 tion limited in point of territory, and always under the control of the 

 superior courts. In the Saxon times the boroughs had courts similar 

 to those of the hundreds ; and as commerce increased, it was found of 

 the utmost importance to them to be relieved from the jurisdiction of 

 the feudal lord, and at the same time to have some court of justice to 

 apply to, less distant, dilatory, and expensive, than the courts at West- 

 minster. Accordingly there has, at some time or other, been granted 

 to almost every borough of any importance, the power of exercising 

 civil and criminal jurisdiction within certain prescribed limits. These 

 courts were in all cases courts of record, but in other respects were not 

 modelled on any \iniform system. There was the greatest possible 

 variety in their constitution and the extent of their powers. But the 

 mode of proceeding in all of them was founded on the common law 

 and the practice of the superior courts, and a writ of error lay into the 

 King's Bench, except from the courts of London and the Cinque 

 Ports. By far the greater number of these courts have fallen into 

 disuse, but many of them still exist in great efficiency, particularly in 

 London, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, and other cities and towns. 



The courts at Westminster, when a cause commenced there has been 

 carried through all its preliminary stages, may send it by writ of trial, 

 to be tried before a judge of one of these borough courts, the judgment, 

 after trial, being given in the superior court. 



The administration of justice, which, under the Saxons, was essen- 

 tially local, rising from the smaller jurisdiction gradually to the 

 higher, became, under the Norman dynasty, centered in one point, the 

 monarch being the fountain of justice. This system of centralisation, 

 connected as it was with the principles of feudalism, which so long 

 prevailed in this island with peculiar force, was elaborated, in the course 

 of centuries, to a high state of perfection ; it absorbed the remains 

 of the ancient local jurisdictions, and stunted all attempts at the 

 establishment of new. But as the artificial systems and feudal asso- 

 ciations, for which we are indebted to the Normans, gradually wore 

 away, the public mind became prepared to revert to the simpler and 

 more poular institutions which existed ages ago among our forefathers, 

 and which seem to be peculiarly adapted to the character of the 

 Germanic nations. This led to the establishment, in all populous 

 places, of courts of requests and courts of conscience, which to some 

 extent supplied the place of the ancient local courts, and finally to the 

 creation in 1846 of the new county courts [COUNTY COURTS], by which 

 the administration of civil justice has once more been brought to 

 every man's door. 



