Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/64

 50 /. BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST the Normans, but a law of the land. It took about a century to accomplish this result, which we doubtless owe to feudal principles. England was one great fief in the hands of th e king, and it was to have but one law. Writing in the reign of Henry I I., Glanville can s peak of the " law a nd custom of ^e realm?^ Su ch a phrase would then ha ve been meaning- less in the mouth of a French or German jurist. About this time a celebrated expression makes its appearance in Eng- land. Me n begin to sp ^sik nf thp " Cftrnmr^n T<fiw," The phrase is not new; but its application is suggestive. Can- onists have used it in speaking of the general law of the Church, as distinguished from the local customs of particular churches. We may trace it back even to the Theodosian Code.^ In the wording of a Scottish statute of the sixteenth century, (and this is very suggestive), it will mean the Roman Law.^ But, in the mouth of an English jurist of the thir- teenth century, it means one thing very specially, viz. the law of the royal court. And because the royal court is very powerful in England, because it has very little seigneurial justice to fight against, because the old popular courts are already antiquated, t he law of the royal court rapid ly becomes the one law common to all the real m, the law which swallows up all, or nearly all, the petty local and tribal peculiarities of which English law, at the time of the Conquest, is full. The Common Law is the jus et consuetudo regni with a fuller development of meaning. It is not only territorial; it is supreme and universal. This is the first great result of the Conquest. Again, the Common Law is the law of a court. When the Normans first settled in England, they endeavoured to collect law, somewhat in the old way of the Leges Barharorum, through the wise men of the shires and the inquests of the king's officials. At least, that was long the tradition ; and whether or no the Leges Eadwardi which have come down to us are the result of such a process, we may be pretty sure that the Norman kings made some eff'ort to ascertain what really were the provisions of those laws and customs of the • Pollock and Maitland, History, vol. 1. pp. 155, 156.
 * Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, 1540, cap. i. vol. ii. p. 356.