law[1].” And of this temper between the clergy and laity many more inſtances might be given.
While things were in this ſituation, the clergy, finding it impoſſible to root out the municipal law, began to withdraw themſelves by degrees from the temporal courts; and to that end, very early in the reign of king Henry the third, epiſcopal conſtitutions were publiſhed[2], forbidding all eccleſiaſtics to appear as advocates in foro ſaeculari; nor did they long continue to act as judges there, not caring to take the oath of office which was then found neceſſary to be adminiſtred, that they ſhould in all things determine according to the law and cuſtom of this realm[3]; though they ſtill kept poſſeſſion of the high office of chancellor, an office then of little juridical power; and afterwards, as it’s buſineſs increaſed by degrees, they modelled the proceſs of the court at their own diſcretion.
But wherever they retired, and wherever their authority extended, they carried with them the ſame zeal to introduce the rules of the civil, in excluſion of the municipal law. This appears in a particular manner from the ſpiritual courts of all denominations, from the chancellor’s courts in both our univerſities, and from the high court of chancery before-mentioned; in all of which the proceedings are to this day in a courſe much conformed to the civil law: for which no tolerable reaſon can be aſſigned, unleſs that theſe courts were all under the immediate direction of the popiſh eccleſiaſtics, among whom it was a point of religion to exclude the municipal law; pope Innocent the fourth having forbidden[4] the very reading of it by the clergy, becauſe it’s deciſions were not founded on the imperial conſtitutions, but merely on the cuſtoms of the laity. And if it be conſidered, that our univerſities began about that period to receive their preſent form of ſcholaſtic diſcipline; that they were then, and continued to
