HISTORY OF LAW 263 



it. Previously the law had been administered almost entirely in 

 local jurisdictions without any systematic supervision. System 

 But when the king sent his justices into different counties bgginswith 

 they regarded themselves as administering the king's law Henry II. 

 in the king's name, that is, as administering a national law. Previ- 

 ously there had been no form of judicial trial, which properly involves 

 the application of rules of law previously conceived of to statements 

 of fact to be ascertained according to some form of judicial investi- 

 gation. But that king introduced the various assizes by which facts 

 were to be determined in order to ascertain the applicability of certain 

 rules of feudal tenure, and thus laid the foundation for a trial to the 

 country, that is, by jury, of controversies which otherwise would have 

 been submitted for settlement by compurgation or ordeal. From 

 the time of Henry II the records of judicial proceedings are pre- 

 served, following a somewhat well-established form of procedure. 



The first English law-book, attributed to Glanville and entitled 

 A Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom of England, 

 was written and made public at the close of this reign, 

 that is, between 1187 and 1189. It is immaterial whether 

 the authorship of that work be attributed to Glanville, who was 

 Chief Justice of the King's Court near the close of that reign, or to 

 another. It is a systematic treatise purporting to state the law of 

 England as administered in the courts. It is not a compilation 

 of statutes, but an exposition of a judicial system, written for the 

 purpose of making the laws which the courts administered known 

 to those participating in such administration. There is no reason to 

 assume that the author of this treatise was ignorant of Roman 

 civil law, the study of which, after its revival in the schools at 

 Bologna and other seats of learning, had been prosecuted by stu- 

 dents going abroad, and under Vacarius, a civilian lecturing at 

 Oxford prior to 1171, and there is abundant internal evidence in 

 the book itself of the familiarity of the author with civil law doctrines. 

 But instead of pursuing the method of the Institutes of Justinian, 

 the author plunges at once into an explanation of the writs known to 

 the English law, by which proceedings in the King's Courts were 

 to be commenced and in accordance with which the nature of the 

 proceedings in any particular case was to be determined, without 

 paying any attention to the natural law or discussing abstractly 

 the rights of persons or property; and two thirds of the book is 

 taken up with these writs, of which it is apparent that the author 

 had made an extensive collection. Now the writ by which a suit 

 was commenced in the courts of the king, as distinct from the 

 process by which suits were instituted in the local courts, was not 

 analogous to anything of which one familiar with the civil law only 

 would have knowledge. If the author of the treatise had had in 



