Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/87

71 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE ORIGIN OF CY TR^S. 7 1 highways ; " " set scolers to scole," to the " maintenance of schools of learning, free schools and scholars in universities ; " " or to some othere craftes," to " the supportation, aid, and help of young trades- men ; " " povere peple and prisons fynden hem hir foode," to the "relief and redemption of prisoners or captives, and for aid and ease of any poor inhabitants;" yet the " releve religion" of the poem is narrowed in the act to the " repair of churches ; " and the " marien maydenes, or maken hem nonnes" is shorn of the lat- ter clause by the Protestant legislature of the daughter of Tudor King Harry; as indeed it would hardly have become them to have treated that as a charity which her father had regarded as treason, or to have peopled the convents which he had broken up. While, however, as we shall shortly illustrate, the law of charities had its main roots in the religious notions of the mediaeval period, it would be a mistake to look exclusively to the religious or moral side of charity for the origin of our law. " Undoubtedly," says a distinguished jurist,^ " in one sense charity may be defined to be all the good affections which men ought to bear to each other; but, before the matter becomes the subject of legal cognizance as a charity, there must be a gift to a general public use. This may in some cases embrace the rich as well as the poor."^ There is, indeed, but a slight difference in the eye of reason between such property as is devoted to charity and that which is given to ordi- nary public uses." ^ Indeed, the most remarkable point to notice is, how far even some of the objects enumerated by Langland as charitable are of a strictly public character, and by no means lim- ited to the poor, sick, or suffering. Such are the repair of bridges and highways. The necessity of these to a civilized society was certainly keenly felt in the middle ages, probably at no period more so. It was fully appreciated that there was no more important factor towards the security of trade and travel, the development of busi- ness and of all the agencies of civil or social improvement, than these nerves of national life ; and to their construction and amelio- ration every incitement was given.* But the idea of treating the performance of these public duties as acts of charity did not come originally from the Church, nor from her religous or even moral re- 1 Dwight, J, arg. Rose Will Case, p. 92. 2 Amb. 651. ' Dwight, ubi supra, p. 66. " Neque multum inter se differunt sacerdotium et impe- rium, neque res sacrae a rebus communibus et publicis." Just. Nov. 7. to make." Besant's London, p. 66.
 * Thus on the bridge at Witham is inscribed, " And the blessid besines is brigges