tions would arise before him as to the form of the writs which he was called upon to issue, and the grants and charters he had to prepare, so that he gradually assumed the functions of a judge. We may here mention that the great seal is not, in truth, carried about in these days in the bag or purse in which it is theoretically supposed to be kept. In fact, it is never put into the purse except on two occasions, viz., when it is received from the queen and when it is delivered up to her. At other times the great seal re poses in a small, plain, green leather box, the key of which the Lord Chancellor alone has, and the great seal should always be where he is. Although the term baron of the exchequer was used as early as the reign of Henry I, it was then applied solely to the barons of the realm who also performed the functions of judges. It was not until the eighteenth year of Henry III that this title was given to private individuals selected for that special duty. But it seems that even at a later period the chief baron was not necessarily a lawyer, for the statute of nisi prius, ( 14 Edw. Ill, c. 16), enacts " that if it happen that none of the justices of the one bench nor the other come into the county, then the nisi prius shall be granted before the chief baron of the exchequer, if he be a man of the law." In the fifth year of Richard II, the Commons petitioned the crown that in future no one should be made a baron of the exchequer unless he were a man well learned in the common law or otherwise in the legal courses and usages of the exchequer. But this prayer seems to have been disregarded. As the proceedings in the Curia Regis were carried on in a foreign tongue, either Norman-French or Latin, the parties en gaged in causes were obliged to employ persons who were familiar with the language of the court. These were called eontairs, or, in Latin, narratores, and none others were allowed to be heard.
The fees paid to counsel in old times were not large, even when allowance is made for the change in the value of money. In 1 500 three counsel in Serjeant's-inn received 35. d. each, from the mayor and aldermen of Canterbury, for their advice on the affairs of that city. They were sometimes treated by their clients. Thus the following items occur in a bill of costs in the reign of Edward III : "For a breakfast at Westminster, spent on our counsel, is. 6d. to another time for boat hire in and out and a breakfast for two days, is. 6d. It was the custom for the sheriff of North umberland to send an escort with the judges when they rode from Newcastle to Carlisle across the wild border country, and a regular receipt was given by the sheriff of Cumber land when their bodies were safely delivered to him. To pay the expenses of this, the mayor and aldermen of Newcastle used to make the judges a present of a sum of money, and this custom was kept up until a very recent period. Before the time of Mary the judges rode to Westminster Hall on mules; and Mr. Justice Whyddon, who was appointed a judge on the king's bench in the first year of her reign, is said to have been the first who bestrode a horse in the solemn procession. Let us now glance at the lives of some of the earliest judges, who, of course, were generally ecclesiastics. But they were not only men of the gown, but men of the sword — as ready to fight in the field as decide knotty points of law in the courts. Thus Hugh de Cressingham, who was at the head of the Justices Itinerant during four years of the reign of Edward I, and at the same time rector of Chack, in Kent, was appointed treasurer of Scotland when Baliol renounced the throne in 1296, and, on the rising of Wallace in the following year, he threw aside his legal robes and cassock, and fell in battle on the banks of the Forth. He was detested by the Scotch for his oppression, and it is said that Wallace ordered as much skin to
