laws will probably be more generally known, we may hope that the method of ſtudying them will ſoon revert to it’s antient courſe, and the foundations at leaſt of that ſcience will be laid in the two univerſities; without being excluſively confined to the chanel which it fell into at the times I have been juſt deſcribing.
For, being then entirely abandoned by the clergy, a few ſtragglers excepted, the ſtudy and practice of it devolved of courſe into the hands of laymen; who entertained upon their parts a moſt hearty averſion to the civil law[1], and made no ſcruple to profeſs their contempt, nay even their ignorance[2] of it, in the moſt public manner. But ſtill, as the ballance of learning was greatly on the ſide of the clergy, and as the common law was no longer taught, as formerly, in any part of the kingdom, it muſt have been ſubjected to many inconveniences, and perhaps would have been gradually loſt and overrun by the civil, (a ſuſpicion well juſtified from the frequent tranſcripts of Juſtinian to be met with in Bracton and Fleta) had it not been for a peculiar incident, which happened at a very critical time, and contributed greatly to it’s ſupport.
The incident I mean was the fixing the court of common pleas, the grand tribunal for diſputes of property, to be held in one certain ſpot; that the ſeat of ordinary juſtice might be permanent and notorious to all the nation. Formerly that, in conjunction with all the other ſuperior courts, was held before the
- ↑ Forteſc. de laud. LL. c. 25.
- ↑ This remarkably appeared in the caſe of the abbot of Torun, M. 22 Edw. III. 24. who had cauſed a certain prior to be ſummoned to anſwer at Avignon for erecting an oratory contra inhibitionem novi operis; by which words Mr Selden, (in Flet. 8. 5.) very juſtly underſtands to be meant the title de novi operis nuntiatione both in the civil and canon laws, (Ff. 39. 1. C. 8. 11. and Decretal. not Extrav. 5. 32.) whereby the erection of any new buildings in prejudice of more antient ones was prohibited. But Skipwith the king’s ſerjeant, and afterwards chief baron of the exchequer, declares them to be flat nonſenſe; “in ceux parolx, contra inhibitionem novi operis, ny ad pas entendment:” and juſtice Schardelow mends the matter but little by informing him, that they ſignify a reſtitution in their law; for which reaſon he very ſagely reſolves to pay no ſort of regard to them. “Ceo n’eſt que un reſtitution en lour ley, pur que a ceo n’avomus regard, &c.”
