A Century of English Judicature. A CENTURY OF ENGLISH JUDICATURE. III. BY VAN VECHTEN VEEDER. THE ECCLESIASTICAL AND ADMIRALTY COURTS. Q RÓBATE, matrimonial and admiralty I affairs were administered for centuries by the civilians; but they left few records of their labors. As a system of judicial prece dents this jurisdiction is the creation of the nineteenth century. The causes of this late development are mainly historical, and re quire a brief sketch of the administration of the civil law in England. When the complete union of church and state was dissolved by William the Con queror, the machinery of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction fell principally into the hands of the bishops, subject, of course, to the final appellate jurisdiction of the Pope. It may be said, in passing, that the Pope was an omnipotent court of first instance for all Christendom. A litigant appealed to the Pope for a writ or breve, just as in secu lar matters he Went to the King's chancery; and although such appeals were regarded with disfavor, and were subjects of hostile legislation from the time of the Constitutions of Clarendon, they continued to a large ex tent until the Reformation. But with what we now understand to be the proper jurisrlicitioii of the ecclesiastical courts — the maintenance of doctrine and the regulation of the clergy — I shall not deal. I propose only to give a brief sketch of their jurisdiction in matters of probate and divorce. When the lay and spiritual courts became distinct, the church claimed jurisdiction in two classes of cases which had impor tant consequences in after times: (a) where a clerk was accused of a felony, and (b) where the matter was of a spiritual nature. The claim of spiritual jurisdiction was for centu ries a matter of great importance. It assumed jurisdiction of course with respect to
churches and the clergy, but the bishops also claimed the correction of the laity pro salute animac. So far as this claim dealt with such immorality as was untouched by the civil courts, it was not seriously contested prior to the Reformation: Persons were con vened for intemperance, unchastity and all kinds of irregularity of life, and were com pelled, under pain of spiritual censures, ex communication and minor penalties, to do penance and pay fines, and, if they refused obedience, they might be imprisoned under the writ dc c.rcommtinicatio capicndo. But the pretensions of the church under this head included perjury, slander and breach of con tract, where civil remedies co-existed. The examination into contracts where faith was alleged to have been pledged or broken, though regarded with jealousy by the civil courts, was continued till the Reformation; its cognizance of suits for defamation was not formally abolished until 1856. By far the most important part of its juris diction, however, was with respect to mat ters of probate and matrimony. The matri monial jurisdiction rested on the sacramental and religious character of the ordinance, and was undisputed. As a sacrament marriage was, under the canon law, indissoluble, and so continued until the Reformation, from which time Parliament undertook to grant divorce a rinculo niatriimmii. But the ec clesiastical courts could grant divorce a menso et thon so far as regarded anything subsequent to the marriage, and it would, dur ing the lifetime of the parties, decree a nullity of marriage for any canonical disability. The right of the King, as parcns patriac, to the disposition of the goods of in testates, was, upon the severance of the civil
