Page:The Public Records and The Constitution.djvu/22

 he may be in England'; and the Court of King's Bench always continued to be 'the Court before the King himself' even when the Sovereign had ceased to sit in it, and had permanently delegated his authority there, as in other Courts, to Justices.

In the reign of King John, before his great Charter, this movable and moving Court before the King himself not only heard causes (including common pleas) brought into it directly, but also causes commenced in the Bench but belonging to the county in which the King with his Court might happen to be. If not there concluded, a cause might be remitted back to the Bench, or left to wait the coming of the Justices in Eyre.

There are abundant materials in the Record Office, beginning in the reign of Richard I, for the proof and illustration of all these matters in detail. The records themselves which have fortunately been preserved are of inestimable value for those who know how to use them, teaching us how the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas acquired their respective jurisdictions, and the relations which each bore to the other, and the Eyre to both.

The growth of another jurisdiction, often confused with that of the Eyre, is also illustrated by the records. I mean that of the Justices of Assise.

The word Assisa had several meanings, only two of which I need at present mention. One was that of a particular kind of action invented in the reign of Henry II, the other that of the sitting or the time of sitting of a Court. The Assise Rolls originally