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  the local jurisdictions. There had been Courts held by Counts in France just as there had been Courts held by Earls, or their deputies the Sheriffs, in England. It was, however, an essentially French idea to make these local courts feel the power of the central authority. The Earl and the Bishop sitting in a County Court in England before the Conquest had a very independent position, but that position was greatly modified afterwards. As Charlemagne sent his Missi to his Counts, as William the Conqueror sent his Commissioners into the Shires, so William's son, Henry I (if indeed William Rufus and the Conqueror himself did not do the like), sent his Missi, or Justices in Eyre, throughout the country.

In the first of the Great Rolls there are traces of more than one Eyre—notably of an earlier Eyre in which Geoffrey de Clinton was the presiding Judge, Now Geoffrey de Clinton was Treasurer, and it has been sometimes said, though proof is wanting, that he was also Chief Justiciary. When he went on his circuit he had three principal objects in view to look after the King's rights and revenue, to inquire as to all infractions of the King's peace, and to do justice between party and party among the King's subjects.

When a Court of Eyre travelled through the realm, a writ issued to the Sheriff of each county, in which the Court was expected, directing him to summon all the Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Earls, Barons, Knights, and Freeholders of the county to appear before the Justices in Eyre, and obey the King's precepts then to be made known to them. These were in fact the persons who constituted the County Court; and the summons to appear before the Justices in Eyre, who were the King's delegates, must have impressed upon them very forcibly the fact that there was a higher jurisdiction before which they must bow. The power of determining the most important causes, whether civil or criminal, was gradually taken away from the County Court; and, in the earliest reigns after that of the