Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/584

 576 REVIEWS OF BOOKS October It was not until 1349 that the flow of individual petitions in parliament was largely diverted by the ordinance which allowed them to be sent directly to the chancellor when parliament was not sitting, and thus started the court of chancery on its later career. The qualification is needed, for a great deal of judicial business was transacted in chancery long before 1349, and Fleta had already distinguished from the other royal courts the curia which the king had in cancellaria sua. Dr. Ehrlich for the most part deals with normal circumstances, when the king was or professed to be quite prepared to redress all grievances that could be shown to be such. He does not fail, however, to glance at the difficulties raised by the struggle between the Crown and the baronage under Henry III and his grandson. He notes as characteristic Bracton's solution of the question of trials for high treason. The king being prose- cutor, neither he nor his justices should give judgement in his own cause, and for practical reasons Bracton supported the baronial claim for a indicium parium in such cases. He was probably ready to go even further on the same road. This is a convenient point to note that the editor in his introduction takes the opportunity to withdraw the support he gave in the ' Magna Carta Commemoration Essays ' to Professor Adams's extreme ' conjunctive ' interpretation of the crux ' per legale iudicium parium suorum vel per legem terre ', and reverts to the less rigid view of Professor Maitland, ' which leaves open the question whether a man can ever be imprisoned or disseised by the law of the land without having had the judgement of his peers '. As he no longer holds that the barons insisted on trial by peers for themselves and their men in every case, it hardly seems worth while disputing whether such insistence could have been fairly described as ' reactionary ', or is more accurately appreciated by Maitland's adjective ' retrogressive '- 1 Quite apart from its more purely legal aspects, Dr. Ehrlich's monograph will be of the greatest use to the historical student. It throws a clear and authentic light on many a controverted question. We wish, however, that he had not given further currency to the old misstatement that Henry III was guilty of breaking his charters. Professor Powicke pointed out long ago in this Review 2 that since he had had no power of granting binding charters during his minority he was perfectly justified, when it ended in 1227, in requiring the recipients of his temporary precepta to have them converted into regular charters. Had he been more moderate in the fees exacted, this step would not have been open to the animadversion of the severest critic. JAMES TAIT. Parlamento Friulano, Vol. I (1228-1331). By PIETRO SILVERIO LEICHT. (Reale Accademia dei Lincei : Commissione per gli Atti delle Assemblee Costituzionali Italiane, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1917.) PROFESSOR LEICHT'S introduction to the volume now before us is an exhaustive study of the origins, composition, and activities of the Friulian parliament. He had already dealt with this subject, 3 and his introduction 1 Introd., p. iv, and ante, xxxiii. (1918) 263. 2 Ante, xxiii. 221. 3 ' II parlamento della patria del Friuli, sua origine, costituzione e legislazione ' (1231- 1420) in Atti delV Accademia di Udine, 3rd series, vols. 'x and xi (1902-3).