Page:The Annual Register 1758.djvu/468

 454 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1758.

cellently adapted to the genius of a particular manner the favourite the Englifn nation. In the know- of '.he popifh clergy, who bor- ledge of this law conuiled great rowed the method and many of part of the learning c;!' thofe dark the maxims of their canon law ages: It was then taught, fays from this original. The ftudy of Mr. Selden, in the monafteries, it was introduced into feveral in the uni'verfities, and in thff fa- univcrfities abroad, particularly milies of the principal nobility, that of Bologna; whtre exercifes Tiie clere:y in particular, as ihey were performed, ledores read, and then engmfTed almoft every other degrees conferr'^d in this faculty, branch of learning, fo, like t'l.eir is in other branches of fcience : predecefTors the Britifh druids, and many nntions on the continent, they vvere peculiarly remarkable juft then beginning to recover for their proficiency in the Itudy from the convulficns confequent of the law. Nulhts clericus nifi upon the overthrow of the Roman cauftdicus, is the charader given empire, and fettling by degree^ of them foon after the conqueft into peaceable forms of govern- by Wi.liam of Malmlbury. The ment, adopted the civil law (being judges therefore were ufually creat- the beft written fyiiem then extant) ed out of the facred order, as was as the bafis of their feveral confti- likewife the cafe among the Nor- iiitionsj blending and inierweav- mans; and all the inferior offices ing it among their own feodalcuf- were fupplied by the lower clergy, toms, in feme places with a more which has occaiioned their fuccef- extenfive, in others a more con- fers to be denominated clerks to this fined authority, (jay. Nor was jt long before the

But the common lawof England, prevailing mode of the times being not committed to writing, reached England. For Theobald, but only handed down by tradi- a Norman abbot, being elefted to tion, ufe, and experience, was not the fee of Canterbury, and ex- fo heartily relifhed by the foreign tremely additfted to this new ftudy, clergy ; who came over hither brought over with him in his re- in fhoals during the reign of the tinue many learned proficients Conqueror, and his two fons, and therein ; and among the rcfl Roger, were utter ftrangers to our con- firmmed Vacarius, whom he placed ilitution as well as our language, in the univerfity of Oxford, to And an accident, which foon after teach it to the people of this "happf'ned, had nearly compleated country. But it did not meet its ruin. A copy of Juftinian's with the fame eafy reception in pandecls, being newly difcovered England, where a mild and ra- at Amalfi, foon brought the civil tional fyilcm of laws had long been law into vogue all over the weft ffiablifhed, as it did upon the con- of Europe, where before it was tincnt ; and, thoi:gh the monkifh quite laid afide, and in a manner clergy (devoted to ch? will of a forgotten ; though forne traces of foreign primate) received it with its authority remained in Italy eagernefs and zeal, yet the laity, and the eaftern provinces of the who were mere interefted to pre- empire. This now became in ferve the old cpnrtiiuiion, and had

. already