NGLISH courts of justice are best classified and

E distinguished according to the nature of their juris

dictions. They all have one common origin-grant from the crown, either express or implied-for, as Blackstone reminds us, the sole executive power of the laws being vested in the sovereign, every medium, by which such laws are administered, is derived from the crown, either through a charter or an Act of Parliament, or through prescriptionthe consent of the sovereign being, in the two first cases, expressly, and, in the latter case, impliedly given.

Some courts have extensive, others very limited, prerogatives: the civil courts of the latter class being confined in jurisdiction (1) as to territory, (2) as to class of suitors, (3) as to nature of dispute, and (4) as to amount of claim. These civil courts of contracted jurisdiction are again distinguishable inter se by their possessing, or not possessing, the right of ordering the imprisonment or arrest of persons, they being respectively known as "inferior courts of record,"

or "inferior courts not of record." The difference between these two classes of inferior civil courts can best be shown by the following definitions given by Blackstone:

"A court of record is that where the acts and judicial proceedings are enrolled or recorded: which rolls are called the records of the court, and are of such high authority that their truth is not to be called in question." "A court not of record is the court of a private man; whom the law will not entrust with any discretionary power over the fortune or liberty of his fellow-subjects. Such are the courts-baron, incident to every manor, and such other inferior jurisdictions, where the proceedings are not enrolled or recorded; but as well their existence, as their truth, shall be tried and determined by a jury."

I shall in this paper assume that all of us are familiar with the constitution and practice of an ordinary English court of justice, either with or without a jury—a familiarity gained by either pleasant outside study or unpleasant inside experience. I shall also assume that we are all acquainted with the general history and constitution of all those great Westminster civil courts which have existed in the present century; for these are all of national importance and interest: (a) the Queen's Bench (Bancum regis), the Common Pleas or Common Bench (Commune Bancum), the Exchequer and the courts of Nisi Prius; these all being common law courts of first instance, and all recently merged into the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice; (b) the High Court of Chancery (including the courts of the Master of the Rolls and of the three ViceChancellors), this being the equity court of first instance; and (c) the Courts of Bankruptcy, Admiralty, Probate and Divorce, and, generally, the courts now included in the Supreme Court of Judicature; as well as (d) the Courts of "Exchequer-Chamber" (now quite abolished), Chancery

Appeal, Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and the Law Lords' Court, or Committee of the House of Lords; these being the great courts of appeal.

But the inferior or local courts are not so much a matter of history or of common knowledge; and a paper, dealing with these courts generally, would be found to be not without interest to any antiquary or even general student; while a paper-as the present is—on the local courts (some superior courts, others, inferior courts) of Lancashire and Cheshire, may prove to be not only of interest but of value to our Society.

Most English counties have, or have had, these local courts; but these were almost invariably of the class known as inferior courts, some being "of record," others "not of record." Lancashire stands pre-eminent among English counties as the possessor, for many centuries, of not only numerous influential inferior courts (some of which have been spared, when those of almost every other county were replaced by the new county courts), but of powerful superior courts, nearly equal in jurisdiction to the great courts of Westminster. This latter privilege our home county derives from its position as a county palatine-a position which, shared by Cheshire and Durham, gave these latter counties also exceptional, but (compared with the former county) inferior judicial rights. Lancashire, though the youngest of the three English palatinates, has been, says Coke, "the best beloved of all the others; for it had more honours, manors and lands annexed to it than any of the rest" (4 Inst. 2111); and, in our day, this favouritism has been preserved (owing partly to royalty's ownership of the duchy, and partly to the development of commercial enterprise in the county), with the result, that Lancashire now stands alone in the possession of palatinate judicial privileges.

The following is the plan of my paper: First, I will deal

with the origin and causes of establishment of local courts in Lancashire and Cheshire; secondly, I will classify the various local civil courts of these counties; thirdly, I will give a list (made as exhaustive as possible) of such of those courts as were in operation at the time of the New County Courts Acts; lastly, I will give notes on the history, constitution, and practice of these peculiar and interesting tribunals, commencing at the most ancient and concluding with the latest class of obsolete inferior courts.

First. The origin and causes of establishment of local courts in Lancashire and Cheshire. We shall find, when studying this part of our subject closely, that the two counties in question owe their possession of local courts to all or most of the following circumstances: 1. The survival of Saxon laws and procedure (instances, the Hundred Courts, and the old County Courts, and some of the Courts Baron and Leet). 2. The preservation of feudal rules and practices (instances, most of the Courts Baron and Leet). 3. Grants of palatinate rights (instances, the numerous special Palatine Courts of Common Law and Equity). 4. Medieval charters to boroughs or intended boroughs (instances, the old Borough Courts). 5. Special statutory enactments, occasioned by the growth of commercial business, particularly in Lancashire (instances, Courts of Request and the new County Courts).

As many of our local civil courts, to be particularly noticed in this paper, date from Saxon times, and as others, dating from a later period (e.g., early Norman), were formed on the laws of the Saxon system of judicature, we shall best grasp our subject by taking a rapid review of the latter system. This system of judicature was based on the division of land. In the thaneland the thane himself was the judge: so the judge of the reve-land was the reve or shire-reve (hence sheriff), whose great court was called the reve-mote or shire mote, and at other times the sole-mote. There was a lower

court than this (the folc-mote); but, as it has not survived to us, I need not describe its constitution or practice. The limits, between the official judicature of the king's courts and that of the court belonging to the lord, were strictly preserved: only when the lord had no court, or refused to do justice; or when the contest was between a vassal of one and a vassal of another; then the suit was referred to the king's court, namely, to the reve-mote of the sheriff.

The great court called the tourn, held on circuit by the sheriff and bishop in every hundred in the county, was the grand criminal court-in which all offences, both ecclesiastical and civil, were tried-and of which the court leet was an offspring-and does not come within the scope of this paper.

The great court for civil business was the county court, held once every four weeks: there the sheriff presided, but the suitors of the court, as they were called, that is, the freemen of landholders of the county, were the judges, and the sheriff was to execute the judgment, assisted, if need were, by the bishop. Once a year, at the Easter tourn or circuit, the sheriff and bishop were to hold also a view of frankpledge; that is, to see that every person above twelve years of age had taken the oaths of allegiance, and found nine freemen pledges for his peaceable demeanour.

Out of the county court was derived an inferior court of civil jurisdiction, called the hal-mote or court-baron. This was held from three weeks to three weeks, and was in every respect like the county court; only the lord, to whom this franchise was granted, or his steward, presided instead of the sheriff.

Beside these inferior courts there was a superior court, known by the name of the wittenagemote, which had a concurrent jurisdiction with them, but which need not be here described.

F