Читать книгу Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John. With an Historical Introduction онлайн

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Thus the three great systems of jurisdiction, popular justice, feudal justice, and royal justice (each depending on a different principle) succeeded each other, on the whole, in the order in which they are here named. Yet the sequence is in some ways logical rather than chronological. No absolute line can be drawn, showing where the supremacy of one principle ended and that of the next began. For centuries, all three co-existed, and struggled for the mastery. The germs of manorial jurisdiction may have been present from an early date. Shire-courts and hundred courts alike were continually in danger of falling under the domination of powerful local magnates. Yet the shire-courts were successful in maintaining till the last (thanks to royal favour) their independence of the manorial jurisdictions and their lords; while only a proportion of the hundred courts fell into bondage.

The royal courts, again, exercised an important jurisdiction from the very foundation of the monarchy; and the king in person, or by deputy, from an early date, withdrew special causes from the County Courts, and also interfered with manorial franchises. Finally, the Courts Baron were never abolished, but only silently undermined by the policy of Henry II. and his successors, until they gradually sank into decrepitude without really ceasing to exist.