soever they were made), might turn to a bondage to them and their heirs, because they might be at another time found on the rolls, and likewise for the prises taken throughout the realm, in our name, by our Ministers; we have granted, for us and our heirs, that we shall not draw such aids, tasks, nor prises, into a custom for anything that hath been done heretofore, be it by roll or any other precedent that may be founden. 'Cap. 6. Moreover, we have granted for us and our heirs, as well to archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and other folk of Holy Church, as also to earls, barons, and to all the commonalty of the land, that for no business from henceforth we shall take such manner of aids, tasks, nor prises, but by the common consent of all the realm, and for the common profit thereof, saving the ancient aids and prises due and accustomed.' 'Edward I.,' says Sir Matthew Hale, 'is well styled our ENGLISH JUSTINIAN; for in his time the law, quasi per saltum, obtained a very great perfection. I think I may safely say, all the ages since his time have not done so much, in reference to the orderly settling and establishing of the distributive justice of this kingdom, as he did within a short compass of the thirty-five years of his reign, especially about the first thirteen years thereof. Indeed, many penal statutes and provisions, in relation to the peace and good government of the kingdom, have been since made. But, as touching the common administration of justice between party and party, and accommodating of the rules and of the methods and orders of proceeding, he did the most at least of any king since William I., and left the same as a fixed and stable rule and order of proceeding, very little differing from that which we now hold and practise, especially as to the substance and principal contexture thereof. 'It would be the business of a volume to set down all the particulars, and therefore I shall only give some short observations touching the same. 1. He perfectly settled the Great Charter and Charta de Forestâ, not only by a practice consonant to them, in the distribution of law and right, but also by that solemn Act passed 25 Ed. I., and styled Confirmationes Chartarum. 2. He established and distributed the several jurisdictions of courts within their proper bounds. And because this head has several branches, I shall subdivide the same, viz.:-(1) He checked the encroachments and insolences of the Pope and the clergy by the Statute of Carlisle. (2) He declared the limits and bounds of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction by the Statutes of Circumspecte agatis and Articuli Cleri. For note, though this latter statute was not published till Edward II., yet it was compiled in the beginning of Edward I. (3) He established the limits of the Court of Common Pleas, perfectly performing the direction of Magna Charta, "quod communia placita non sequantur curia nostra," in relation to B. R. (the King's Bench), and in express terms extending it to the Court of Exchequer by the Statute of Articuli super Chartas, cap. 4. It is true, upon my first reading of the Placita de banco of Edward I., I found very many appeals of death, of rape, and of robbery therein; and therefore I doubted whether the same were not held, at least by writ, in the Common Pleas' Court; but upon better inquiry, I found many of the records before Justices Itinerant were entered or filled up among the records of the Common Pleas, which might occasion that mistake. (4) He established the extent of the jurisdiction of the Steward and Marshal. Vide Articuli super chartas, cap. 3. And (5) he also settled the bounds of inferior courts, not only of Counties, Hundreds, and Courts Baron, which he kept within their proper and narrow bounds for the reasons given before; and so gradually the common justice of the kingdom came to be administered by men knowing in the laws, and conversant in the great Courts of B. R. and C. B. (Common Bench), and before Justices Itinerant; but also, by that excellent Statute of Westminster, 1, cap. 35, he kept the courts of great men within their limits, under several penalties, wherein ordinarily very great encroachments and oppressions were exercised. 'The third general observation I make is, he did not only explain, but excellently enforced, Magna Charta, by the Statute De tallagio non concedendo, 34 Ed. I. 4. He provided against the interruption of the common justice of the kingdom, which had too commonly been affected by mandates under the Great Seal or Privy Seal. This he did by the statute of Articuli super chartas, cap. 6, which interruptions, notwithstanding Magna Charta, had formerly been frequent in use. '5. He settled the forms, solemnities, and efficacies of fines, confining them to the Common Pleas and to Justices Itinerant; and appointed the place where they brought the records after their circuits; whereby one common repository might be kept of assurances of lands, which he did by the statute De modo levandi fines, 18 Ed. I. '6. He settled that great and orderly method for the safety and preservation of the peace of the kingdom, and suppressing of robberies, by the statute of Winton. 7. He settled the method of tenures, to prevent multiplicity of penalties, which grew to a great inconvenience, and remedied it by the statute of Quia emptores terrarum, 18 Ed. I. '8. He settled a speedier way for recovery of debts, not only for merchants and tradesmen, by the statute of Acton Burnel and De mercatoribus, but also for other persons, by granting an execution for a moiety of the lands by Elegit. 9. He made effectual provision for recovery of advowsons and presentations to churches, which was before infinitely lame and defective, by statute Westminster 2, cap. 1. 10. He made that great alteration in estates, from what they were formerly, by statute Westminster 2, cap. 1, whereby Estates of fee-simple, conditional at Common Law, were turned into Estates-tail, not removable from the issue by the ordinary methods of alienation. Upon this statute, and for the qualifications hereof, are the superstructures built of 4 Hen. I. cap. 32, 32 Hen. VIII., and 33 Hen. VIII. '11. He introduced quite a new method, both in the laws of Wales, and in the metho of their dispensation, by the statute of Rutland. 12. In brief, partly by the learning and experience of his judges, and partly by his own wise interposition, he silently and without noise abrogated many ill and inconvenient usages, both in his courts of justice and in the country. He rectified and set in order the method of collecting his revenue in the Exchequer, and removed obsolete and illeviable parts thereof out of charge; and by the statutes of Westminster 1 and Westminster 2, Gloucester and Westminster 3, and of Arti culi super chartas, he did remove almost all that was either grievous or impractical out of the law, and of the course of its administration; and substituted such apt, short, pithy, and effectual remedies and provisions, as by the length of time, and the experience had of their convenience, have stood ever since without any great alteration; and are now, as it were, incorporated into and become a part of the Common Law itself. Upon the whole matter, it appears that the very scheme, mould, and model of the Common Law, especially in relation to the administration of common justice between party and party, as it was highly rectified and set in a much better light and order by this king than his predecessors left it to him, so in a very great measure it has continued the same in all succeeding ages to this day (1676). So that the mark, or epocha, we are to take for the true stating of the law of England, what it is, is to be considered, stated, and estimated from what it was when this king left it. Before his time, it was, in a great measure, rude and unpolished in comparison of what it was after his reduction thereof. And on the other side, as it was thus polished and ordered by him, so has it stood hitherto without any great or considerable alteration, abating some few additions and alterations which succeeding times have made, which for the most part are in the subject-matter of the laws themselves, and not so much in the rules, methods, or ways of its administration. 'As I before observed some of those many great accessions to the perfection of the law under this king, so 1 Sir Matthew Hale, born 1609, died in 1676. His "History of the Common Law of England," from which this passage is extracted, was not published till after his death, |