, but
are inferior branches of the customary or unwritten laws of England,
properly called, the king's ecclesiastical, the king's military, the
king's maritime, or the king's academical, laws.

LET us next proceed to the _leges scriptae_, the written laws of the
kingdom, which are statutes, acts, or edicts, made by the king's
majesty by and with the advice and content of the lords spiritual and
temporal and commons in parliament assembled[b]. The oldest of these
now extant, and printed in our statute books, is the famous _magna
carta_, as confirmed in parliament 9 Hen. III: though doubtless there
were many acts before that time, the records of which are now lost,
and the determinations of them perhaps at present currently received
for the maxims of the old common law.

[Footnote b: 8 Rep. 20.]

THE manner of making these statutes will be better considered
hereafter, when we examine the constitution of parliaments. At present
we will only take notice of the different kinds of statutes; and of
some general rules with regard to their construction[c].

[Footnote c: The method of citing these acts of parliament is various.
Many of our antient statutes are called after the name of the place,
where the parliament was held that made them: as the statutes of
Merton and Marlbridge, of Westminster, Glocester, and Winchester.
Others are denominated entirely from their subject; as the statutes of
Wales and Ireland, the _articuli cleri_, and the _praerogativa regis_.
Some are distinguished by their initial words, a method of citing very
antient; being used by the Jews in denominating the books of the
pentateuch; by the christian church in distinguishing their hymns and
divine offices; by the Romanists in describing their papal bulles; and
in short by the whole body of antient civilians and canonists, among
whom this method of citation generally prevailed, not only with regard
to chapters, but inferior sections also: in imitation of all which we
still call some of our old statutes by their initial words, as the
statute of _quia emptores_, and that of _circumspecte agatis_. But the
most usual method of citing them, especially since the time of Edward
the second, is by naming the year of the king's reign in which the
statute was made, together with the chapter, or particular act,
according to it's numeral order; as, 9 Geo. II. c. 4. For all the acts
of one session of parliament taken together make properly but one
statute; and ther