Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1st ed, 1768, vol III).djvu/73

Ch. 5. CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

OF COURTS ECCLESIASTICAL, MILITARY, AND MARITIME,

ESIDES the everal courts, which were treated of in the preceding chapter, and in which all injuries are redreed, that fall under the cognizance of the common law of England, or that pirit of equity which ought to be it's contant attendant, there till remain ome other courts of a juridiction equally public and general: which take cognizance of other pecies of injuries, of an eccleiatical, military, and maritime nature; and therefore are properly ditinguifhed by the title of eccleiatical courts, courts military, and courts maritime.

I. I decend to conider particular eccleiatical courts, I mut firt of all in general premie, that in the time of our Saxon ancetors there was no fort of ditinction between the lay and the eccleiatical juridiction: the county court was as much a piritual as a temporal tribunal: the rights of the church were acertained and aerted at the ame time and by the ame judges as the rights of the laity. For this purpofe the bihop of the diocee, and the alderman, or in his abence the heriff of the county, ued to it together in the county court, and had there the cognizance of all caues as well eccleiatical as civil: a uperior deference being paid to the bihop's opinion in piritual matters, and to that of the lay judges in temporal. This union of power was very advantageous to them both : the Rh