from England, but at all times to relieve him from the pressure of the vast amount of business which the government of that newly-acquired dominion involved. The justiciar, in short, stood to the King in the whole kingdom in the same relation as the sheriff did in each shire. The dignity of the justiciar's office remained unimpaired until the death of King John, when Hubert de Burgh, the justiciar, being besieged in Dover Castle, the barons who proclaimed Henry III. constituted the Earl of Pembroke 'Rector regis et regni, De Burgh still retaining his office. In 1241, the Archbishop of York was appointed regent during Henry's absence in Poitou, without the title of justiciar. But the office was still considered of such importance that in 1258, in the Mad Parliament' at Oxford, the barons demanded that the justiciar should be annually chosen with their approbation. At length Edward I. dispensed with the office altogether; and the chancellor. who now entered into many of the rights and dignities formerly enjoyed by the justiciar, became the principal minister. cellor. The title of Chancellor was introduced into England The Chanunder Eadward the Confessor, as the designation of the official keeper of the royal seal and chief of the king's chaplains. With the chancellor at their head, the king's chaplains, like the clerks of the palace' of the Frankish monarchs, formed a select body of scribes or secretaries, who, under the justiciar, drew up and sealed the royal writs, conducted the king's correspondence, and assisted the trea 1 Stubbs, Select Chart. Introductory Sketch, 16. The growth of the justiciar's functions was gradual, and even the history of the title is obscure. The office first appears as the lieutenancy of the kingdom or vice-royalty exercised during the king's absence from England. In this capacity William Fitz-Osbern, the steward of Normandy, and Odo of Bayeux, acted during the Conqueror's visit to the Continent in 1067... It would seem most probable that William Fitz-Ösbern, at least, was left in his character of steward, and that the Norman seneschalship was thus the origin of the English justiciarship... Under William Rufus the functions of the confidential minister were largely extended; the office became a permanent one, and included the direction of the whole judicial and financial arrangements of the kingdom.'—Const. Hist. i. 346, 347. The Curia Regis. surer in keeping the royal accounts. Under the Norman kings the office of chancellor, though dignified and important, was thrown into shade by the justiciarship. From the time of Becket, however, the chancellorship appears to have steadily advanced in dignity until, on the abolition of the office of justiciar, it attained, as we have seen, the foremost rank. The term Curia Regis, in its widest signification, and early use under William the Conqueror and William Rufus, seems to have denoted the National, Common, or Great Council of the Realm-the Witenagemôt in its feudalized form at the triennial sessions of which the bishops and earls and all tenants-in-chief had the right of attending. In addition to its political function of giving counsel and consent to legislative changes and other acts of national import, the Curia, in its judicial aspect, was invested with the old appellate jurisdiction of the Witenagemôt, and with a direct jurisdiction, as the feudal court of the King's vassals, in all disputes between the tenants in capite. From the reign of Henry I. at the latest, the judicial functions of the Common Council of the Realm appear to have been exercised by a supreme court of justice, to which the name Curia Regis is specially, though as yet not exclusively, appropriated, and which is attendant upon the King in his movements from place to place. It is presided over by the King, or in his absence by the justiciar, who was assisted in the performance of his duties by a staff of officials composed of those barons who were attached to the royal household, such as the constable, marshal, chamberlain, steward, and treasurer, together with the chancellor and other persons selected by the King as being specially 1 Palgrave, Eng. Com. i. 177. 'The name, derived probably from the cancelli, or skreen behind which the secretarial work of the royal household was carried on, claims a considerable antiquity; and the offices which it denotes are various in proportion. The chancellor of the Karolingian sovereigns, succeeding to the place of the more ancient referendarius, simply the royal notary: the archi-cancellarius is the chief of a large body of such officers associated under the name of the Chancery, and is the official keeper of the royal seal. It is from this minister that the English chancellor derives his name and function.'-Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 351-353. This qualified by their legal knowledge to act as judges. ministration. The administration of the justiciar was first systematically Fiscal adorganized under Henry I., by Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, the founder of a family of officials. From the reign of The Exchethat king, at the latest, a committee or branch of the Curia quer. Regis was specially devoted to fiscal matters, and when so employed, sat in the chamber and was known by the name of the Exchequer (curia regis ad scaccarium). Twice in each 1 On the origin of the great officials of the household and the State, see Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 343-356. Hardy, Introduction to Close Rolls, p. 23. 3 Besides being applied to the National Council, and the Supreme Court of Justice, the term Curia Regis was also employed to denote the King's Continual, Ordinary, or Select Council. The members of the Curia were all termed justices, their head being the Capitalis Justiciarius; but in the Exchequer they were called Barones, or Barones Scaccarii, a title which they retained after the Court of Exchequer had come to be filled with mere lawyers not chosen from the baronage. 'Justiciarios ibidem commorantes,' says Fleta, 'barones esse dicimus eo quod suis locis barones sedere solebant.'-Hallam, Midd. Ages, ii. 425. The Exchequer derived its name from the 'chequered cloth which covered the table at which revenue. year, at Easter and Michaelmas, every sheriff was bound to appear at the Exchequer in the palace at Westminster and account for the sums due from his shire. These were Sources of mainly of two kinds : (1.) the ancient national payments (which required no new authorization), consisting of (a) the ferm of the shire, that is the rent (formerly paid in kind, now commuted for fixed sums) from public land and royal demesnes-the old Folkland now become terra regis; (b) Danegeld, the ship-money of those times,' a tax of two shillings on every hide of land, originally imposed under .Ethelred II., to raise a tribute exacted by the Danes, and by the Norman kings turned into a permanent contribution for the public defence; (e) the fines of local courts-the old English teite payable to the King. (2.) The new feudal aids, reliefs, and other payments, for which also no authorization of Parliament was required unless when some extraordinary gift was demanded. In addition to these sources of revenue the demesne lands of the King and the towns were liable to talliage, which was arbitrarily exacted without the consent of Parliament, until the right was surrendered by Edward I. No inconsiderable income was also received by the Exchequer from the fines and other proceeds of the 'pleas of the crown,' from the amercements payable in respect of a large class of small offences of commission or omission, and from the fines paid to the King by the parties to suits at law, either by the plaintiff to obtain speedy judgment, or by the defendant in order to delay or put an end to further proceedings. Important changes in Henry II, the first of the Angevin or Plantagenet dynasty, introduced important changes in taxation. All under Henry classes of the people and all kinds of property were taxation II. the accounts were taken, a name which suggested to the spectator the idea of a game at chess between the receiver and the payer, the treasurer and the shenti.'-Stabbs, Const. Hist. i. 377; Dialogus de Scaccario, i. I. The latest instance of its payment is in the 20th of Henry II., but Richard I. practically revived it under the disguise of a carucage,' or land tax. Hallam, Midd. Ages, ii. 321; Stubbs, Select Chart. Introductory Sketch, brought under contribution. His scutage was a new land tax imposed upon the tenants in chivalry, clerical as well as lay, and rated, not upon the ancient basis of the hide, but upon the scutum,' or knight's fee. Danegeld, after the King's dispute with Becket, was allowed to drop out of the fiscal system, but only to be almost immediately revived under the name of donum or hidage. Under Richard I., it became the carucage,' a tax levied upon all holders' of land of whatever tenure. But Henry's most Taxation of important innovation was the taxation of income and per- perty. personal prosonal property, which, as we have seen, were made contributory for the first time by his ordinance of the Saladin Tithe in 1188. The practice, when once introduced, was speedily extended and permanently retained. For the ransom of Richard I. in 1193, every person in the realm was called upon to pay one-fourth of revenue or goods. King John exacted, in 1203, a seventh of the moveables of his barons, and in 1207 a thirteenth from the whole people." It was only after taxation had been remodelled and systematically extended, under the first Angevin kings, to all The pressure classes of men and all kinds of property, personal as well as real, that any serious opposition, first by the clergy and taxation excites opposi then by the rest of the nation, begins to make itself felt. tion; In the pre-Norman period the right of the National Council to consent to the imposition of taxes was undisputed, although rarely called into exercise. By the theory On the disputed extent of the Anglo-Saxon hide,' see Kemble, Saxons, i. 88 seq., who makes it about thirty-three acres; and G. L. Von Maurer, Einleitung, 126-134. It is agreed that the later hide was one hundred or one hundred and twenty acres. The quantity of land constituting a Knight's fee was not uniform. It probably varied with the value. The usual value requisite for a Knight's fee was £20, temp. Edw. I. (Parl. Writs. i. 214), and the amount had probably been the same from the introduction of the tenure. Supra, p. 95. 3 In subsequent times a fifteenth of the value of every man's chattels became the usual grant. From the Sth Edward III. a 'fifteenth' signified a fixed sum according to an assessment of the value made in that year upon all the cities, boroughs, and towns of England. Under Richard II. the old scutage, hidage, and talliage began to be replaced by the subsidy,' a property tax of 45. in the pound for land and 25. S. in the pound for goods. Like the fifteenth,' the 'subsidy' also became a fixed amount; one 'subsidy = £70,000. · of new and systematic |