ame order with the
greatest barons, it gave them no surprise to see him take his seat
in the great council, whether he appeared of his own accord, or by a
particular summons from the king. The barons by writ, therefore, began
gradually to intermix themselves with the barons by tenure; and, as
Camden tells us,[**] from an ancient manuscript now lost, that after the
battle of Evesham, a positive law was enacted, prohibiting every
baron from appearing in parliament, who was not invited thither by a
particular summons, the whole baronage of England held thenceforward
their seat by writ, and this important privilege of their tenures was in
effect abolished. Only where writs had been regularly continued for some
time in one great family, the omission of them would have been regarded
as an affront, and even as an injury.

* Chancellor West's Inquiry into the Manner of creating
Peers p. 43, 46, 47, 55.

** In Britain. p 122.

A like alteration gradually took place in the order of earls who were
the highest rank of barons. The dignity of an earl, like that of
a baron, was anciently territorial and official:[*] he exercised
jurisdiction within his county: he levied the third of the fines to his
own profit: he was at once a civil and a military magistrate: and though
his authority, from the time of the Norman conquest, was hereditary in
England, the title was so much connected with the office, that where the
king intended to create a new earl, he had no other expedient than to
erect a certain territory into a county or earldom, and to bestow it
upon the person and his family.[**] But as the sheriffs, who were the
vicegerents of the earls, were named by the king, and removable at
pleasure, he found them more dependent upon him; and endeavored to throw
the whole authority and jurisdiction of the office into their hands.
This magistrate was at the head of the finances, and levied all the
king's rents within the county: he assessed at pleasure the talliages
of the inhabitants in royal demesne: he had usually committed to him
the management of wards, and often of escheats: he presided in the lower
courts of judicature: and thus, though inferior to the earl in dignity,
he was soon considered, by this union of the judicial and fiscal powers,
and by the confidence reposed in him by the king, as much superior to
him in authority, and undermined his influence within his own
jurisdiction.[***] It became usual, in creating a