Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/494

 480 IV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY > Legal proceedings and literature were in Latin or in French. The reformers demanded what Coke had advisedj^ that they should be in English. The French, they said, was " pedlar's " and " hotch-potch," the Latin " barbar- ous " and " quelque chose," and the only use of them was to give lawyers a monopoly of advocacy.^ In 1650 and 1651, Parliament, complying with a petition from the army and with the general wish, enacted English should be the language of law, committed to the Speaker, the Commis- sioners of the Seals and the three Heads of the Common Law Courts the supervision of the translators, and pro- hibited the use of court-hand. Only the proceedings in the Admiralty Court were to remain in Latin — the successor of Spanish, the predecessor of French — as the diplomatic and international language. In 1651 the Upper Bench made a rule in English, and afterwards, while the Common- wealth lasted, all courts, even those of manors, recorded their proceedings in the vulgar tongue.^ The reporters forewent the use of their " peculiar dia- lect," now under protest, evasively, and with regret,^ now with cheerfulness, and even enthusiastically.^ French and Latin were restored with Charles. The Wimbledon rolls were again kept (all but the returns to precepts) in the latter; cases, even those decided under the Commonwealth, appeared " in their native beauty " in the former. ^ But in ten years there was a cry for the late convenience ; "^ and in seventy years an act, bitterly opposed, almost neutralized two years brev.," pp. 7, 15, 21-3; "Judges judged," etc., pp. 107, 114, 115; "Jurors judges of law and fact," pp. 4, 5, 51, 77, 79, 86: Warr, "The Corruption," etc., cc. 3, 4: Winstanly, etc., u. s., pp. 18, 19: Cock, " Christian Govt.," pp. 133-5. »Stt. 1650, c. 37; 1651, c. 4: followed up by Stt. 1654, c. 28; 1656, c. 10: Whitelock, 384, 475-83: Style, 261: Wimbledon rolls, Nos. 12-15; roll of misc. scripts; bks. 7-9: "Merc. Pol.," No. 19. ^ March, pref.: Bridgeman, pref.: Leonard by Hughes, u. s. '"An appendix by way of dialogue [to the 2nd part of 'The peo- ple's ancient and just liberties asserted in the proceedings against and tryals of Thomas Rudyard, Francis Moor,' etc.] " (1670): North, " Guilford," p. 22.
 * 4 Rep. XX., xxi.: 1 Inst, xl., xli. (citing St. 35 Edw. iij. c. 5).
 * Jones, " Eight observable points of law," §§ 4, 8 ; " The new ret.
 * Bulstr. u. s.: Noy [?], pref.: Clayton, u. s.: Hetley, pref., 26, 36.
 * Yelverton, pref.: 2 Siderfin.