44 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE [xr. 



tion. During the long reign of Henry III. the 

 country, on the whole, was prosperous, and increased 

 in wealth. Notwithstanding the loud complaints 

 respecting the exactions of Rome, stately cathedrals 

 of exquisite beauty arose throughout England; and, 

 in her social condition, a new order of men was in 

 course of formation, destined to become a power in 

 the state. Since the seat of the great court for 

 determining private suits, Common Pleas, had been 

 rendered stationary by Magna Carta, and had been 

 established in the hall of the Palace at Westminster, 

 many practitioners in that court had become learned 

 in the customs of the realm, and, to a certain extent, 

 acquainted with the laws of Rome. The servientes 

 ad legem began to rival in credit the servientes ad 

 arma. The tendency to place greater reliance upon 

 law, and to favour those who were engaged in 

 administering it, became manifest in England, and, 

 we may add, about the same time, in France also. 



It was in the year 1285, the 13th of Edward I. that 

 the famous statute DC Donis Conditionalibus, which 

 gave to all owners of freehold land in England, the 

 power of strictly entailing it, was passed. It was by 

 no means a solitary enactment like Magna Carta, or 

 the Provisions of Merton, but formed part of the 

 great body of remedial laws passed in the reign of 

 Edward I., which obtained for himself the not 

 wholly inappropriate designation of the English 

 Justinian. No one, I think, can peruse this body 



