Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1st ed, 1768, vol III).djvu/50

38 to keep the king's leal and examine all fuch writs, grants, and letters, as were to pafs under that authority ; and the lord high treafurer, who was the principal advifer in all matters relating to the revenue. Thefe high officers were affifled by certain per- fons learned in the laws, who were called the king's jufticiars or juftices; and by the greater barons of parliament, all of whom had a feat in the aula regia, and formed a kind of court of appeal, or rather of advice, in matters of great moment and difficulty. All thefe in their feveral departments tranfacled all fecular bufmefs both criminal and civil, and likewife the matters of the revenue: and over all prefided one fpecial magiflrate, called the chief jufti- ciar or capitalis jufticiarius tothts Angllae ; who was alfo the prin- cipal minifter of ftate, the fecond man in the kingdom, and by virtue of his office guardian of the realm in the king's abfence. And this officer it was who principally determined all the vaft variety of caufes that arole in this extenfive jurifdiclion ; and from the plenitude of his power grew at length both obnoxious to the people and dangerous to the government which employed him.

THIS great univerfal court being bound to follow the king's houfehold in all his progrefles and expeditions, the trial of com- mon caufes therein was found very burthenfome to the fubjedb. Wherefore king John, who dreaded alfo the power of the juf- ticiar, very readily confented to that article which now forms the eleventh chapter of magna carta, and enacts " that commuma pla- ft cita non fequantur curiam regis, fed teneantiir in aliq,,j loco certo." This certain place was eftablilhed in Weflminfter-hall, the place where the aula regis originally fate, when the king relided in that city; and there it hath ever fmce continued. And the court being thus rendered fixed and flationary, the judges became fo too, and a chief with other juftices of the common pleas was thereupon appointed; with jurifdiction to hear and determine all pleas of land, and injuries merely civil between fubjecl: and fubject. Which critical eftabliihment of this principal court of

i Spelm. Gl. 331,2,3. Gilb. Hit. C. P. introd. 17. Rh