ly confined to the clergy, and chiefly to the monks
[p]. The great officers of the crown, and the feudal barons, who were
military men, found themselves unfit to penetrate into those
obscurities; and though they were entitled to a seat in the supreme
judicature, the business of the court was wholly managed by the chief
justiciary and the law barons, who were men appointed by the king and
entirely at his disposal [q]. This natural course of things was
forwarded by the multiplicity of business which flowed into that
court, and which daily augmented by the appeals from all the
subordinate judicatures of the kingdom.
[FN [o] Dial. de Scac. p. 30. apud Madox, Hist. of the Exchequer. [p]
Malmes. lib. 4. p. 123. [q] Dugd. Orig. Jurid. p. 25.]

In the Saxon times, no appeal was received in the king's court, except
upon the denial or delay of justice by the inferior courts; and the
same practice was still observed in most of the feudal kingdoms of
Europe. But the great power of the Conqueror established, at first,
in England, an authority, which the monarchs in France were not able
to attain till the reign of St. Lewis, who lived near two centuries
after: he empowered his court to receive appeals both from the courts
of barony and the county courts, and by that means brought the
administration of justice ultimately into the hands of the sovereign
[r]. And lest the expense or trouble of a journey to courts should
discourage suitors, and make them acquiesce in the decision of the
inferior judicatures, itinerant judges were afterwards established,
who made their circuits throughout the kingdom, and tried all causes
that were brought before them [s]. By this expedient the courts of
barony were kept in awe; and if they still preserved some influence,
it was only from the apprehensions which the vassals might entertain
of disobliging their superior, by appealing from his jurisdiction.
But the county courts were much discredited; and as the freeholders
were found ignorant of the intricate principles and forms of the new
law, the lawyers gradually brought all business before the king's
judges, and abandoned the ancient simple and popular judicature.
After this manner, the formalities of justice, which, though they
appear tedious and cumbersome, are found requisite to the support of
liberty in all monarchical governments, proved at first, by a
combination of causes, very advantageous to royal authority in
England.
[FN [r] Madox,