Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/653

 19. ZANE: THE FIVE AGES 639 of the clergy, from Pope to hedge priest, as all of them busy in the chase for gain. But while that work is forgotten, we still are delighted by his tales of King Arthur and his knights and table round. ^ Under'^Richard and John, sons of Henry II., the regular y^ enrolled records of the courts begin. Soon two sets of records are developed, those of the regular tribunal sitting at Westminster and those made in the presence of the king. The first are the records of what became the court of Common Pleas, the second of what became the King's Bench. In John's reign and that of his son Henry III. the learned y lay lawyer appears in increasing numbers. First among them is Geoffrey Fitz Peter, who appears in the famous scene in the first act of King John, where the Faulconbridge in- heritance is in question. Shakespeare cites the oldest Eng- lish case on the orthodox rule of the English law, pater quern nuptiae demonstrant. Chief Justice Hengham in the next reign cites this case in the Year Book. It is needless to say that if Shakespeare had had the legal knowledge which has been by some lawyers ascribed to him, he could never have made the flagrant errors as to procedure which are found in King John. Geoffrey Fitz Peter was the son of an itinerant justice of Henry II. 's reign, who had well upheld the dignity of civil justice against the church tribunals. A certain canon of Bedford was convicted of manslaughter in a bishop's court, and was sentenced merely to pay damages to the relatives of the deceased. In open court the judge denounced the canon as a murderer ; the priest retorted with insulting words, whereupon the King ordered the priest Indicted. Per- haps at this time contempts of court were not punished by the court itself in a summary way. Geoffrey Fitz Peter inherited from his father, the judge, large possessions. With his wife he obtained the title and part of the estates of the Mandeville Earls of Essex. He was a learned lawyer, if we may believe Matthew Paris. He made a ruling which probably had the most far-reaching effect of any judicial decision. The last Mandeville earl, when he found that death was approaching, attempted to atone for a somewhat ora-