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 seal to the hands of a prelate was the policy which would resist or reverse ecclesiastical innovations. Even the mastership of the rolls, which had been held by doctors of Padua and Bologna, fell to the common lawyers. Thomas Hannibal, master of the rolls (1523—1527), must, one would think, have been an Italian, as were the king's Latin secretaries Andrea Ammonio and Pietro Vannes.

See Janssen, Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, vol. I., pp. 471–501, where the cry of 'heathenry!' is raised against the civil law. Janssen's attempt to praise the canon law as radically Germanic while blaming the 'absolutistic' tendencies of the civil law seems strange. Was not the canon law, with its pope, qui omnia iura habet in scrinio pectoris sui, absolutistic enough?

Wyclif, Tractatus de officio regis, Wyclif Society, 1887, pp. 56, 193, 237, 250: 'Leges regni Anglie excellunt leges imperiales cum sint pauce respectu earum, quia supra pauca principia relinquunt residuum epikerie [=ἐπιείκεια] sapientum&hellip; Non credo quod plus viget in Romana civilitate subtilitas racionis sive iusticia quam in civilitate Anglicana&hellip;Non pocius est homo clericus sive philosophus in quantum est doctor civilitatis Romane quam in quantum est iusticiarius iuris Anglicani&hellip;Unde videtur quod si rex Anglie non permitteret canonistas vel civilistas ad hoc sustentari de suis elemosinis vel patrimonio crucifixi