Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/250

 236 //. FROM THE llOO'S TO THE 1800'S method of the Civil law, like those of the Ecclesiastical Courts." . . . ^ " The proceedings of the Courts of Admi- ralty bear much resemblance to those of the Civil law, but are not entirely founded thereon ; and they likewise adopt and make use of other laws, as occasion requires, both the Rhodian laws, and the laws of Oleron: for the law of England doth not acknowledge or pay any deference to the Civil law con- sidered as such, but merely permits its use in such cases where it judges its determination equitable, and therefore blends it in the present instance with other marine laws ; the whole being corrected, altered and amended by acts of parliament, and common usage; so that out of this composition, a body of jurisprudence is enacted, which owes its authority only to its reception here by consent of the Crown and people." On the criminal jurisdiction of the Court of Admiralty, Blackstone alludes to the disuse of its old procedure:^ — " but as this Court proceeded without jury in a manner much conformed to the Civil law, the exercise of a criminal juris- diction there was contrary to the genius of the law of Eng- land ; " and as, owing to the requirements of two witnesses, gross offenders might escape, therefore " marine felonies are now tried by commissioners oyer et terminer according to the law of the land." The procedure and practice of the Court of Admiralt was transferred by the Judicature Acts to the Probate, Admiralty and Divorce Division of the High Court of Justice, except as altered by subsequent Orders under the Act. This Divi- sion thus unites the three branches of English law in which the Civil law had most direct and acknowledged influence, the Testamentary and Matrimonial Clerical Jurisdictions, and the Jurisdiction of the Admiralty, which, as we have seen, was partly built up by clerical judges. On the subject matter of Admiralty law, we may say more in the next section. The procedure in rem against a ship, analogous to " Noxa caput sequitur," the institution of aver- age {Contribution, Bottomry (pecunia trajectitia vel nauti- cum foenus), and probably charter parties, all bear traces of Roman origin. «B1. iii. 108. *B1. iv. 268.