Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/180

 / 166 //. FROM THE llOO'S TO THE 1800'S the very names of the men to whom he attributes those deci- sions which have become part of English Law. But to him, at least, is due the credit of having cast into harmonious and enduring shape a huge mass of material which had been slowly accumulating. Still the different local customs lin- gered on, in the local courts of the manor, the borough, and the shire. But these were every day dwindling beside the vigorous growth of the royal courts; and for the royal courts there was now a Common Law, a law common to all the realm. Bracton's book was given to the world only a few years before Edward ascended the throne. Edward's task was to give it free play. For the first time, English Law could be thought of as a whole, as a body which could grow and develop. Bracton's treatise had stated, not only the rules of conduct themselves, but the legal procedure by which they could be enforced. In so doing, it had revealed some anom-/ alies and many imperfections. These it was the peculiarj province of the King to remedy; for the courts which they' affected were his courts. It is astonishing how much of Ed- ward's celebrated legislation is concerned with matters of procedure. In the substance of the Law there were still moot points. These the King could settle, as he did in the case of De Bonis (before noticed), where he had to take the reac- tionary side, and in the case of Quia Emptores (before no- ticed), where progress won a decided victory. But, per- haps unconsciously, he did the greatest thing for the future! of English Law when he called into existence the National! Parliament. For, better even than the judges on circuit,* the elected members of Parliament knew the customs of the people, and, with the aid of their counsel and advice, future kings could formulate from time to time the rules of English Law. And thus provision was made for the perpetual con- tinuance of that process of collection which had been begun by the King's justices, and which had to be done over and over again if Law was to keep abreast of national progress. Not until Edward is dead do we find in the statute book the honoured formula which describes the King as enacting
 * with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and tem-