174 Froceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



The name and office of Connt ^rere deriTed from the Court of 

 Charlemagne, and the institution of counties in England is of earlier 

 date than' the Xorman Conquest.-'- The creation of a count involved 

 from the first a delegation of royal authority for legal and adminis- 

 trative purposes, and the ordinary county had tvo courts — the King's 

 Court for criminal cases, and the Earl's Court for civil causes. But 

 the judicial officers and sheriffs Avere in all eases appointed by the 

 Cro-un. Betrveen a coujity palatine and an ordinary county the 

 distinction was broad and weU defined. According to Blackstone, 

 " counties palatine" — of -which there were in England the three great 

 examples of Chester, Durham, and Lancaster, besides the smaller ones 

 of Hexham and Pembroke — "are so called a paJatio, because the 

 owners of them had formerly in those counties /?/;•« regalia as fully as 

 the King in his palace."- The Earl of a county was Lord of all the 

 land in his shire that was not Church land : and his jurisdiction was 

 equivalent in all essential points to the j-urisdiction of the King in an 

 ordinary county.^ The jura regalia included a royal jurisdiction and 

 a royal seignory. By virtue of the first the Earl Palatine had the 

 same high courts and officers of justice as the King ; by virtue of the 

 second he had the same royal services and escheats, and could even 

 create barons, as was certainly done in Chester. Included in the 

 power to appoint officers of justice was the appointment of the sheriff : 

 and with the functions of the sheriff in the palatinate no King's 

 sheriff might interfere. And therefore, says Sir John Davies, "such 

 co-onty is merely [absolutely] disjoined and separated from the Crown, 

 so that no King's writ runs there, except a writ of error, which being 

 the last resort and appeal is excepted out of all their charters."* 



The origin of these immense delegations of royal power was of 

 course the inability of the Sovereign in early times to establish an 

 efficient administrative system throughout his realm ; and the same 

 considerations which compelled resort to the palatine system in 

 England by the early Xorman Kings, rendered necessary the applica- 

 tion of an analogous method of administration iu Ireland by Henry II. 

 In the case of England, where the central authority was strong, the 

 palatinates were limited to the march or border districts, as Chester 



-Seidell's "Titles of Honour," p. 694. 

 2 Stephen's Blackstone, i., p. 131. 

 ^ Stubbs's " Constitutional History," i., p. 363. 



* Sir .J. Davies's " Eeports des cases et matters en Lev," " Le Case del Countie 

 Palatine de "Weixford," p. 62. 



