s, those collections are official; but in other
States they are simply matters of private enterprise. They are of no
authority, and if they are wrong it is no protection to you. You are
bound to know the laws. These early so-called codes, especially this
code of Edward I, although it caused him to be called the English
Justinian, because it was the first attempt of putting any large
body of the Anglo-Saxon laws in writing at all, are still not at all
_codes_ in the technical sense. This one was merely a collection of a
certain number of laws reduced to writing and re-enacted by Edward I.
We note here the phrase "common right shall be done to rich and poor,"
rather an interesting landmark; it shows what progress was being made
by the people in establishing their rights as freemen and to equal
laws. For the laws of Norman England mainly applied to land-owners,
and were made by the barons, the only people that had property; there
was but a small class in those early days between the land-owners and
actual serfs, villeins, who were practically attached to the soil,
in a condition almost of servitude; they did service, were not paid
wages, and couldn't leave the place where they were born--and both
these are tests of slavery. But in the first two centuries after the
Conquest the number of freemen very rapidly increased; men who were
not property owners, not land-owners, but still freemen. Especially
it increased in the towns, for the towns very early established their
right to be free, far earlier than the country. It was very early
established that the citizens of any town, that is, the members of
the guild of the town, duly admitted to the guild, were freemen, and
probably before this statute. But this is interesting as a recognition
of the fact that there were free poor people--people without property,
who nevertheless were neither villeins nor serfs--and that they were
entitled to equality before the law, just as we are to-day, as early
as 1275. Otherwise, the Statute of Westminster concerns mainly the
criminal law. There is one very important provision--because it has
been historically followed from then down to now--that there shall
be no disturbance of the elections. Elections shall be free and
unimpeded, uncontrolled by any power, either by the crown, or
Parliament, or any trespasser. That has been a great principle of
English freedom ever since, and passed into our unwritten constitution
over here, and of course has