L A W. 
t?ie country was cleared of its ravagers, the foldiers began 
to look for a permanent fettlement, and the Anglo-Saxon, 
like the Goth and the Burgundian, claimed and received, 
in full ownerlhip, the (hare of the houfe, land, and Haves, 
which he had enjoyed as a gued; and this he took as his 
right, free from all conditions, excepting thofe to which 
every fubjeft mull be liable, unlels the tacit compact, that 
he was to defend the Romano-Britons from the ravages 
of the Pifts and Scots, may be called a condition. This 
was a mode in which the Goths, Burgundians, and the 
greater part of the other continental fettlers, founded their 
Several kingdoms, as may be feen from their codes, and 
which, we may remark, contain fcarcely any thing in the 
fliape of legiflation that is not clearly Roman. The An¬ 
glo-Saxon laws are not quite fo explicit, and the druggie 
which enfued in confequence of the encroachments of the 
Saxons may be the caufe of this; but, from the extraordi¬ 
nary limilarity in the tenor of the continental and Anglo- 
Saxon laws and chronicles, it is clear that the fame fyftem 
in their fettlements was purfued by all the conquerors of 
Europe. 
“ I am aware that it has been maintained by fome of 
the moll diftinguiffied of our writers, particularly by the 
eloquent and learned fir William Blackftone, that the 
conquerors of Europe i'eized on the conquered lands, and 
parcelled them out among the officers and foldiers, in the 
various ftages of fubordination, annexing to the grant a 
condition of military fervice ; and this fuppofed divifion 
of lands has been made ufe of moll ably, and, ivere it 
true, mod fuccefsfully, to account for and explain the 
laws which, under the denomination of the feudal fyftem, 
were eftablilhed in Europe four hundred years after the 
general conquell by the northern hordes. The codes of 
all the conquerors prove that this was not the cafe ; and 
the lefs ingenious but mod true account of the origin of 
the feudal fydem is to be drawn, I apprehend, from the 
date of manners and fentiments introduced among the 
provinces of the empire, by the general diffufion of the 
Roman fyftem of patronage. 
“In the general fettlement I have jud mentioned, the 
victorious leader became a praefes, or proconful, in autho¬ 
rity; with this difference, that he acknowledged no fupe- 
rior. Clovis, the founder of the French monarchy, even 
accepted from Judinian the proconfular robe. Content, 
perhaps, at.firft, with forming a court fimilar to that of a 
Roman proconful, the general, after he had affumed the 
title of king, furrounded himfelf alfo with the officers of 
royalty ; and his more intimate adherents were rewarded 
with a part of his domain, and were dignified with the 
fame, or offices fimilar to thofe, which were exercifed 
about the perfon of the emperor. From this fource prin¬ 
cipally lias flowed the prefent conflitution of Britain.” 
EJay, 6-17. 
Notwithdanding this fuppofed uniformity of law', the 
local cudoms of the feveral provinces of the kingdom 
were grown fo various in the time of king Alfred, that 
be found it expedient to compile his dome-book, or liber 
jndicialis, for the general ui'e of the whole kingdom. 
This book is faid to have been extant fp late as the reign 
of Edward IV. but is now unfortunately lod. It con¬ 
tained, we may probably fuppofe, the principal maxims of 
the common law, the penalties for mifdemeanors, and the 
forms of judicial proceedings. Thus much may at lead 
be collected from that injunction to obferve it, which we 
find in the laws of king Edward the Elder, the fon of 
Alfred : Omnibus qui reipublica prafunt etiam atque etiam 
mando, ut omnibus aquos fe prabcant judices perinde ac in ju- 
diciali libro fcriptum kabetur : nec quiquam formident quin jus 
commune audathr libereque dicant. 
But the irruption and edablifliment of the Danes in 
England, which followed foon after, introduced new cuf- 
toins, and caufed this code of Alfred in many provinces 
to fall into difufe, or at lead to be mixed and debafed 
with other laws of a coarfer alloy. So that, about the 
beginning of the nth century there were three principal 
fyItems of laws prevailing in different didrifts, i. The 
3G7 
Mercen Lage, or Mercian Laws, which were obferved in 
many of the inland counties, and thofe bordering on the 
principality of Wales, the retreat of the ancient Britons; 
and therefore very probably intermixed with the Britiffi 
or Druidical cudoms. 2. The Wejl-Saxon Lage, or Laws 
of the Wed-Saxons, which obtained in the counties 1 to 
the fouth and wed of theifland, from Kent to Devon- 
fliire. Thefe were probably much the fame with the laws 
of Alfred above-mentioned, being the municipal law of 
the far mod confiderable part of his dominions, and par¬ 
ticularly including Berklhire, the feat of his peculiar re- 
fidence. 3. The Dane Lage, or Daniffi Law, the very name 
of which fpeaks its original and compofition. This was 
principally maintained in the red of the midland counties, 
and alfo on the eadern coad, the part mod expofed to the 
vifits of that piratical people. As for the very northern 
provinces, they were at that time under a didinft go¬ 
vernment. 
Out of thefe three laws, Roger Hoveden and Ranul- 
phus Celtrenfis inform us, king Edward the Confeffor 
extrafted one uniform law, or diged of laws, to be ob¬ 
ferved throughout the whole kingdom; though Hoveden 
and the author of an old manufcript chronicle allure us 
likewife, that this work was projected and begun by his 
grandfather king Edgar. And indeed a general diged of 
the fame nature lias been conllantly found expedient, and 
therefore put in practice, by other great nations, which 
were formed from an affemblage of little provinces, go¬ 
verned by peculiar cudoms. As in Portugal, under king 
Edward, about the beginning of the 15th century; in 
Spain, under Alonzo X. who about the year 1250 exe¬ 
cuted the plan of his father St. Ferdinand, and collected 
all the provincial cultoms into one uniform law, in the 
celebrated code entitled Las Partidas ; and in Sweden, 
about the fame era, a univerfal body of common law was 
compiled out of the particular cudoms eltablillied by the 
laghman of every province, and entitled the land's Lagh, 
being analogous to the common law of England. 
Both thefe undertakings, of king Edgar and of Edward 
the Confeffor, feem to have been no more than a new edi¬ 
tion, or freffi promulgation, of Alfred’s code, or dome- 
book, with fuch additions and improvements as the ex¬ 
perience of a century and a half had fuggeded. For Al¬ 
fred is generally dyled by the fame hiltorians the legum 
Anglicanarum conditor, as Edward the Confeffor is the re¬ 
ft i tut or. Thefe, however, are the laws which our hidories 
fo often mention under the name of the Laws of Edward' 
the Confefjor ; which our ancedors ftruggled fo hard to 
maintain, under the fird princes of the Norman line; and 
which fubfequent princes fo frequently promifed to keep 
and to redore, as the mod popular aft they could do, 
when preffed by foreign emergencies or domedic difcon- 
tents. Thefe are the laws, that fo vigoroufly withdood 
the repeated attacks of the civil law ; which edablidiea 
in the 12th century a new Roman empire over the mod 
of the dates on the continent; dates that have loft, and 
perhaps upon that account, their political liberties; while 
the free conditution of England, perhaps upon the fame 
account, has been rather improved than debafed. Thefe, 
in fliort, are the laws which gave rife and origin to that 
colleftion of maxims and cudoms which is now known 
by the name of the common laws a name either given to 
it in contradidinftion to other laws, as the datute-law, 
the civil-law, the law-merchant, and the like; or, more 
probably, as a law common to all the realm, the jus com¬ 
mune, or folcright, mentioned by king Edward the Elder, 
after the abolition of the feveral provincial cudoms and 
particular laws before-mentioned. 
But, though this is the mod likely foundation of this 
colleftion of maxims and cudoms, yet the maxims and. 
cudoms fo collefted are of higher antiquity than .memory 
or hidory can reach; nothing being more difficult than 
to afcertain the precife beginning and fird fpring of an 
ancient and long-edablifted cudom. Whence it is, that 
in our law the goodnefs of a cudom depends upon its hav¬ 
ing been ufed time out of mind ; or, in the folemnity of 
