Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAP. III.

THE COUNTRIES SUBJECT TO THE LAWS OF ENGLAND.

[1 Bl. Com. Introd. s. 4; 1 Steph. Com. Introd. s. 4.]

The municipal laws of England do not by the common law extend either to Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Sark, Alderney, and their appendages, or to the more distant dependencies of the mother country, but are confined to the territory of England only. Custom, however, in some instances, and the Legislature in many others, have extended these laws in a greater or less degree to the several places which form the empire of Great Britain, as will be presently shown.

England.]-England now comprehends Wales and Berwick, and also part of the main or high seas; for thereon the Admiralty Courts have jurisdiction. This main sea begins at the low water mark; but between the high water mark and the low water mark, where the sea ebbs and flows, the common law and the Admiralty have divisum imperium; an

alternate jurisdiction: one upon the water when it is full sea, the other upon the land when it is an ebb.

England is divided into an ecclesiastical and temporal state.

Ecclesiastical divisions of England.]—The ecclesiastical state is divided into two archbishoprics or provinces, viz., Canterbury and York. Each archbishop has within his province suffragan bishops of every diocese, some of which are of ancient foundation, four were founded by Henry VIII. out of the dissolved monasteries, and some have been erected by recent statutes (a).

Every province is divided into dioceses, every diocese into archdeaconries, every archdeaconry into rural deaneries, and every deanery into parishes; but there are some places that are extra parochial.

A province is the jurisdiction of an archbishop; a diocese is the circuit of every bishop's jurisdiction; an archdeaconry is the circuit of the archdeacon's jurisdiction, as a deanery is that of a rural dean; and a parish is that circuit of ground on which the souls under the care of one parson or vicar do inhabit (b).

Temporal state.]- The temporal state is divided into counties, those counties into hundreds, and the hundreds into tithings or towns.

A county (comitatus à comitando, from accompanying together, particularly at the assizes and sessions held for the county; or, as some say, à comitando principem) or shire is a certain circuit or part of the kingdom governed by a yearly officer called a sheriff, or shire reeve, under the king; for a county cannot be without a sheriff. The king, by his letters patent, may make a county with its two

[blocks in formation]

courts, the town and county court: and that no part should be exempt from the authority of the sheriff, every parcel of land lies in some county (c). Every county is, as it were, an entire body by itself; so that, regularly, an inquest or jury shall not take notice of anything done in another county. The number of counties in England and Wales have been different in different times: at present there are forty in England and twelve in Wales. Three of these counties, Chester, Durham, and Lancaster, are called counties palatine; the two former are such by prescription, or immemorial custom, the latter by creation. Counties palatine are so called à palacio, because the owners thereof, the Earl of Chester, the Bishop of Durham, and the Duke of Lancaster, had in these counties jura regalia as fully as the King has in his palace; regalem potestatem in omnibus. By 27 Henry 8, c. 2, and 14 Eliz. c. 6, these powers of the owners of counties palatine were abridged, and they have recently been more assimilated to the rest of England. Thus, by the 11 Geo. 4, and 1 Will. 4, c. 70, ss. 13, 14, the jurisdiction of the Court of Session of the county palatine of Chester was abolished, and the county subjected in all things to the jurisdiction of the superior courts at Westminster. By the 4 & 5 Will. 4, c. 62, the practice and proceedings in civil actions in the Court of Common Pleas at Lancaster were regulated and made conformable in most particulars to that of the superior courts just mentioned; and by the 2 Vict. c. 16, similar provisions have now been made with respect to the Court of Pleas at Durham (d).

Some cities and towns corporate also are counties of themselves, as London, York, Canterbury, Norwich, Worcester, &c.

A hundred was so called, because it was originally

the jurisdiction of ten tithings, or an hundred families, dwelling in some neighbouring towns.

The people who live in a hundred are called hundredors; and these hundreds continue to this day, to some purposes; but their jurisdiction is in general transferred to the county court, except indeed those which were formerly annexed to the Crown, and have been granted to great men in fee, and so remain in nature of a franchise, and have return of writs; and in these franchises or liberties the sheriff cannot meddle by his ordinary authority; but all grants made since the 14 Edw. 3, c. 9. of bailiwicks of hundreds, except such as then were of estates in fee, are void. In some of the more northern counties, the hundreds are called wapentakes, rapes, ridings. There is a chief constable, and a bailiff of every hundred, to execute the orders of the sheriff, justices, &c. (e).

A town, villa, or vicus, was a precinct anciently containing ten families, upon which account they are sometimes called tithings. These tithings are

said to have had each of them originally a church and celebration of divine service, sacraments, and burials; though that seems to be rather an ecclesiastical than a civil institution. The word town, or vill, is indeed, by the alteration of times and language, now become a generical term, comprehending under it the several species of cities, boroughs, and common towns.

A city is a town incorporated, which is, or hath been, the see of a bishop; and though the bishoprick be dissolved, as at Westminster, yet still it remaineth a city (f).

A borough is a town, either corporate or not, that sendeth burgesses to Paliament, though the word was originally used in a more extensive sense, and is so now in the Municipal Corporation Acts.

[blocks in formation]

There are also other towns, which are neither cities nor boroughs; some of which have the privileges of markets, and others not; but both are equally towns in law. To several of these towns there are small appendages belonging, called hamlets, which are sometimes under the same administration as the town itself, and sometimes governed by separate officers; in which last cases they are, to some purposes in law, looked upon as distinct townships. Towns originally contained but one parish and one tithing; though many of them now, by the increase of inhabitants, are divided into several parishes and tithings; and sometimes where there is but one parish, there are two or more vills or tithings (h).

Wales.]-The principality of Wales was incorporated and united to the kingdom of England by 27 Hen. 8, c. 26, and all persons born within the said principality are thereby admitted to have, enjoy, and inherit, all and singular the freedoms, liberties, rights, privileges, and laws of England, in as full a manner as other the King's subjects; and all lands, manors, tenements, rents, reversions, services, and other hereditaments within the said principality, or within any particular lordship, parcel thereof, shall be inheritable after the English tenure, and not after any Welsh tenure; and that the laws, ordinances, and statutes of the realm of England for ever, and none other laws, ordinances or statutes, shall be had, used, practised, and exercised in Wales. This statute, which contains a great variety of regulations concerning this principality, too numerous even to abridge, is confirmed by the statute of 34 & 35 Hen. E, c. 26, which ordains, that the said principality of Wales shall be divided into twelve shires; and in short

« PreviousContinue »