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Indiana University Studies 
almost no legal development in the times of the Lancasters 
and Yorks. The greatest development occurred during the 
reign of Edward I, who has been called by Chief Justice Herle 
“the wisest king who ever was”, and by Reeves the “English 
Justinian”. He perhaps labored more than any of his prede- 
cessors to improve the judicial policy of England in all of 
its parts, and his endeavors, during his long reign, were so 
successful and so permanent in their effects that his reign is 
memorable in the history of An glo- American law. The new 
law developed in this period by the courts of equity was judge- 
made law ; some novel principles in the disguise of antique 
garb (circumventive fictions) were introduced evasively into 
the common law, on contracts, family settlements, tenure, and 
remedies ; but most of the development in other parts of the 
law was due to legislation. The reign of Edward I is notable 
for the celebrated statutes passed therein. Parliament was 
now established. Edward I summoned the first model Parlia- 
ment (kings, lords, and commons), and promised not to tax 
without the consent of the subjects. The House of Commons 
did not become distinct until the time of Edward III. Then 
it voted supplies, but it did not legislate ; it petitioned. It 
did not legislate until the time of Henry VI (1461). After 
Edward I, except for the evolution of the Court of Chancery 
under Edward III, legal development consisted for the most 
part of the development and interpretation of the law as it 
had been left by the English Justinian, until after the Wars 
of the Roses. Parliament abandoned the idea of controlling 
the common law. During the last part of the fifteenth cen- 
tury it seemed ready to decline and fall. But Henry VIII in 
the sixteenth century saved it for his despotic purposes, and 
during his reign there were passed many important statutes. 
After that judges soon ceased to claim the privilege of dis- 
regarding statutes, but rather all law came to be defined as 
the command of a sovereign. 
Lawyers. A class of professional temporal lawyers grew 
up in the time of Edward I. For a century previous an 
ecclesiastical bar had existed, divided into two classes : advo- 
cates, who pleaded, and proctors, who represented the clients. 
Similar groups, few in number, now grew up around the king’s 
courts, also divided into two classes : attorneys (solicitors) , 
like proctors, (1) for the king and (2) for litigants ; and 
