and in the way of express legislation he did little. Thus nearly all the alterations which his era produced had for many years been recognised customs before they subsequently appeared in the written law.

The Curia Regis B, or the Aula Regis, as it was sometimes called from the fact that it assembled in the hall of the King's Palace, or, indeed, wherever he might happen to be-was the outcome of this Norman plan of centralisation. The main object of its creation was the establishment of a tribunal which was to be at once a Court of first instance for important matters, and a General Court of Appeal for the whole Kingdom. The Constable, the Marshal, the Seneschal, the Chamberlain, the Chancellor -in those days merely chief of the Royal secretaries— and any other persons the King might appoint, were the members of the Court; and over them, as capitalis justiciarius totius Anglia, was placed the Chief-Justiciar. The appointment of this official had been rendered a necessity by the frequent absences of the King in Normandy, and by the enormous amount of business which had to be transacted. At first he was simply a regent, appointed to govern in the King's absence; and though the growth of his subsequent pre-eminence was as gradual as the origin of his title is obscure, his office became permanent and increased considerably in importance, when William Rufus placed into the hands of Ranalph Flambard the administrative and judicial institutions of the kingdom. Briefly, therefore, the Justiciar was the first subject of the realm, the principal Minister of State, the president alike of the King's Court and the Exchequer, and the regent of the Kingdom in the Sovereign's absence, whose powers extended even to issuing writs in his own name. After the fall of Hubert de Burgh in 1233 this great office lost its importance, and is even said to have become practically extinct. The first purely judicial official of

this name was Robert de Bruce, grandfather to the Scottish King, who, on 8th March, 1268, was appointed Capitalis fusticiarius Placita ad Coram Rege Tenenta, the designation subsequently employed to describe the Chief of the King's Bench. It is said that Hugh le Despenser, who fell at Evesham, was the last Justiciar who was chief of the army as well as the law; and that the illustrious Bracton was among those who held this great office.

The Curia Regis B gradually lost its raison d'etre after the establishment of regular Courts. From the very beginning of the Norman period, one of its branches appears to have dealt exclusively with matters concerning the revenue, and with the two Williams this was known as Fiscus or Thesaurus. Transacting in this manner different business, and located in a different part of the palace, this branch under Henry I. became, in a manner, distinct from the whole; and, though still composed of the same individuals, it came to be known as the Court of Exchequer. Under its new name, which was apparently derived from the chess-board squares which covered the pay table, it grew into increased importance. Its methods of receiving money are exceptionally interesting. In receipt for payment, a stick or tally was given, a half of which was retained by the Court; and it was the accumulation of these tallies and their careless use as fuel which originated the Houses of Parliament fire in 1834. The extent Exchequer rolls, or great rolls of the pipe, begin with 2 Henry II.; and the whole series is from then complete with the exceptions of 1 Henry III. and 7 Henry IV. They contain the accounts of the King's revenue year and year as made up by his officers, sheriffs and ministers; and they give us a list of the Crown's debtors. But there is one much earlier roll, consisting of 14 smaller ones stitched together, which is of extreme interest as being official evidence of events which occurred prior to 1154, of which otherwise we should

know little. Like many other documents of those times, the roll is undated. In turn it has been ascribed to 5 Stephen and 1 Henry II. But it has now been proved to belong to 31 Henry I.

In the reign of Henry II. the Court of Exchequer appears to have become actually detached from the Curia Regis B, though its organisation as an entirely distinct Court with a separate staff of judges was not effected till a century later. From the reign of Edward II. till the death of Sir Fitzroy Kelly in 1880, the Court was presided over by a Chief Baron, and its judges were styled Barons from the days when they were chosen from the ranks of the great Crown vassals, till the provisions of the first Judicature Act came into force. It will be remembered that the last English judge who bore that historic designation was the late Mr. Baron Pollock. Under the Norman Kings the Exchequer was one of the most important departments of the State; and it is to this cause that the system of purchase, which till so recently clung to one of the branches of our public service, owed its origin. Thus in the early roll, already mentioned, the Chancellor of that date is recorded as owing immense sums pro sigillo, though some authorities deny that this entry has any reference to the great seal. Still few Acts of the Crown, during this period, had any object but that of obtaining money, and even justice itself appears to have been administered for little else.

The Exchequer was divided into an administrative and a judicial side. Account and receipt departments for the regulation of matters connected with the revenue were comprised in the former; and the latter possessed an equity jurisdiction-abolished only in 1841-and a common law one, which was established by the fictitious writ of Quo minus. The origin of the fiction is to be ascribed to the limited jurisdiction which the Exchequer in the first

instance possessed. Properly speaking, it had power but to deal with matters concerning the royal revenue. But the judges, who were partly paid in suitors' fees, somewhat naturally desired to extend their business; and this they accomplished by encroaching upon the province of the other Courts. A series of enactments endeavoured to restrain them. Thus in the articuli super cartas of Edward I. (1300), it was enacted that common pleas should no longer be heard at the Exchequer, a proceeding contrary to the provisions of the Charter. Nevertheless legal ingenuity found little difficulty in surmounting this obstacle, and a fiction was invented to meet the case. It was in consequence held that suitors were in all cases debtors of the King, who were unable to pay him his dues through the remissness of their own debtors; and in this manner the Court eventually became available for most things to all men. From the equity side appeal lay direct to the House of Lords, and from the Common law side writ of error lay-from the reign of Edward III.-to the Court of Exchequer Chamber. Finally, by the joint effect of the Judicature Act of 1873, and an order in Council of 1889, the Exchequer, like the Queen's Bench and the Common Pleas, was merged in the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice.

The reign of Henry II. was an important one in the history of the Courts. In 1174 that monarch reduced the number of judges in the Curia Regis B from 18 to 5, doubtless finding that the larger number was a source both of needless expense and confusion; and this body of 5-nominally only coram rege, but designed to follow the King about the country-was the forerunner of the Court of King's Bench. Cases of special difficulty were to be taken from this tribunal to a Court of Appeal, which was in effect the King in his Council; and it was from this latter assembly, which as regards composition and powers

was little else than the Curia Regis B of earlier times, that the Privy Council derives its judicial authority and the Chancellor his equitable jurisdiction. Moreover, it

was from this source-combined with the effects of a developing Parliament-that the magnum concilium of the next century sprang, from the powers of which body the House of Lords derives its authority as a Court of Appeal Throughout his reign Henry was certainly an organiser rather than a legislator; but not the least of his achievements was the placing of the law in the hands of the most learned men of his time and those best qualified to administer it satisfactorily. These, it need hardly be stated, were ecclesiastics well versed in the canon law; and it is, therefore, perhaps not too much to say that the Common Law of England was fashioned into an intellegible shape, out of a mass of tangled and contradictory local custom, by priests of the Church of Rome.

It has been said that a distinct tribunal for the considera tion of private suits existed in the time of Richard I. But in any case the establishment of such a Court was effected by the 17th Clause of Magna Charta, which provided that the hearing of Common Pleas should no longer be dependent on the movements of the King, but that, for the convenience of suitors, a fixed Court should from thenceforth be established. In this manner the Court of Common Pleas-the lock and key of the Common Law-which alone of the three Courts, properly speaking, had power to deal with private suits, was established at Westminster. Nevertheless, the Court on more than one occasion did subsequently sit away from Westminster. Indeed, at the commencement of Edward III.'s reign, this seems to have been a comparatively frequent occurrence, since in 1328 it was deemed necessary to pass an Act which provided that Common Pleas should not be removed without warning, so that parties might not thereby