JUDICIAL AND EXECUTIVE SYSTEMS. 503 



the claims derived. For the business of these travelling 

 judges, like the business of the king s court by which they 

 were commissioned, was primarily fiscal and secondarily 

 judicial. They were members of a central body that was at 

 once Exchequer and Curia Regis, in which financial functions 

 at first predominated ; and they were sent into the provinces 

 largely, if not primarily, for purposes of assessment : as in 

 stance the statement that in 1168, &quot; the four Exchequer 

 officers who assessed the aid pur fille marier, acted not only 

 as fcaxers but as judges.&quot; In which facts we see harmony 

 with those before given, showing that support of the ruling 

 agency precedes obtainment of protection from it. 



527. With that development of a central government 

 \vhich accompanies consolidation of small societies into a large 

 one, and with the consequent increase of its business, entailing 

 delegation of functions, there goes, in the judicial organiza 

 tion as in the other organizations, a progressive differen 

 tiation. The evidence of this is extremely involved; both 

 for the reason that in most cases indigenous judicial agencies 

 have been subordinated but not destroyed by those which 

 conquest has originated, and for the reason that kinds of 

 power, as well as degrees of power, have become distinguished. 

 A few leading traits only of the process can here be indicated. 



The most marked differentiation, already partially implied, 

 is that between the lay, the ecclesiastical, and the military 

 tribunals. Erom those early stages in which the popular 

 assembly, with its elders and chief, condemned military de 

 faulters, decided on ecclesiastical questions, and gave judg 

 ments about offences, there has gone on a divergence which, 

 accompanied by disputes and struggles concerning jurisdiction, 

 has parted ecclesiastical courts and courts martial from the 

 courts administering justice in ordinary civil and criminal 

 cases. Just recognizing these cardinal specializations, we 

 may limit our attention to the further specializations which 

 have taken place within the last of the three structures. 



