den exigence, to summon them together. He
could at his pleasure command the attendance of his barons and their
vassals, in which consisted the military force of the kingdom; and
could employ them, during forty days, either in resisting a foreign
enemy, or reducing his rebellious subjects. And what was of great
importance, the whole JUDICIAL power was ultimately in his hands, and
was exercised by officers and ministers of his appointment.
[FN [d] Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 15. Spellm. Gloss. In verbo
PARLIAMENTUM.]

[MN Judicial power.]
The general plan of the Anglo-Norman government was, that the court of
barony was appointed to decide such controversies as arose between
the several vassals or subjects of the same barony; the hundred court
and county court, which were still continued as during the Saxon times
[e], to judge between the subjects of different baronies [f]; and the
CURIA REGIS, or king's court, to give sentence among the barons
themselves [g]. But this plan, though simple, was attended with some
circumstances which, being derived from a very extensive authority
assumed by the Conqueror, contributed to increase the royal
prerogative: and, as long as the state was not disturbed by arms,
reduced every order of the community to some degree of dependence and
subordination.
[FN [e] Ang. Sacra, vol. i. p. 334, &c. Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 27, 29.
Madox, Hist. of Exch. p. 75, 76. Spellm. Gloss. in verbo HUNDRED.
[f] None of the feudal governments in Europe had such institutions as
the county courts, which the great authority of the Conqueror still
retained from the Saxon customs. All the freeholders of the county,
even the greatest barons, were obliged to attend the sheriffs in these
courts, and to assist them in the administration of justice. By these
means they received frequent and sensible admonitions of their
dependence on the king or supreme magistrate: they formed a kind of
community with their fellow barons and freeholders: they were often
drawn from their individual and independent state, peculiar to the
feudal system, and were made members of a political body: and,
perhaps, this institution of county courts in England has had greater
effects on the government than has yet been distinctly pointed out by
historians, or traced by antiquaries. The barons were never able to
free themselves from this attendance on the sheriffs and itinerant
justices till the reign of Henry III. [g] Brady, Pref. p. 143.]