al, including those matrimonial, testamentary and other
departments, which the church ever tried to bring within the operation
of the canon law, there were various grades of appeal, ending with the
pope. The claims of the church to engross appeals in matters trenching
on the temporal rights of princes led to continual conflicts between
church and state, terminated in England at the reformation by the
suppression in 1534 of appeals to Rome, which had previously been
discouraged by legislation of Edward III. and Richard II.

In temporal, as distinct from spiritual matters, it became customary for
ambitious sovereigns to encourage appeals from the courts of the crown
vassals to themselves as represented by the supreme judges, and
Charlemagne usually enjoys the credit of having set the example of this
system of centralization by establishing _missi dominici_. It is not
improbable that his claim was suggested or justified by the practice of
the Roman empire, to the sovereignty whereof he claimed to be
successor.

_England._--When the royal authority in England grew strong as against
that of the tenants _in capite_, the king's courts in England were more
effectively organized, and their net swept wider so as to draw within
their cognizance matters previously adjudged in courts baron or courts
leet or in the county court, and they acquired authority to supervise
and review the decisions of the inferior and local courts, to control
and limit their claims to exercise jurisdiction, and to transfer causes
from the local to the royal courts. The machinery by which this process
was usually effected, under the common law, was not by what is now known
as appeal, but by the process of _certiorari_ or writs of error or
prohibition. Recourse was also had against the decisions of the royal
courts by appeal to the great council of the king, or to parliament as a
whole. The supremacy of the king's courts over all causes, as well
ecclesiastical as civil, has been completely established since the reign
of Henry VIII., and they have effectually asserted the power to regulate
and keep within their proper jurisdiction all other tribunals within the
realm. Since that date the organization of judicial tribunals has
gradually been changed and improved with the object (1) of creating a
judicial hierarchy independent of executive control; (2) of ensuring
that all decisions on questions of law shall be co-ordinated and
rendered systematic by correcti