Church.' To take the earliest instance, the Church was the Church before the time of Constantine, but it did not, and could not, become the national or (in this case) the imperial Church until his time. Further, the law of the Church is binding on Churchmen as such; it is binding on citizens only so far as it is accepted by the State—so far, that is, as it has been made a part of the law of the State.
II. Proceeding downward, still under the guidance of the commissioners and Bishop Stubbs, we find that in ecclesiastical as in other matters very considerable and very important changes followed upon the Norman conquest. 'That event,' in the words of the commissioners, 'placed the English Church in closer connection than before with the Churches of the Continent, introduced a new school of ecclesiastical administrators, and coincided in time with a revival of the study of civil and canon law.'[1] From this time dates the establishment of the ecclesiastical courts as separate tribunals, of which[2] those now in existence are the legitimate descendants; the creation of a large class of professional ecclesiastical lawyers; and of a system of appeals ultimately to the courts of Rome.
Of the law administered by these courts we are told that while no new code was imposed, the episcopales leges' were to be followed so far as they were 'secundum canones.'
Bishop Stubbs believes that 'they were already drawn out and codified in conformity with the usages of foreign Churches.'[3] It is to be borne in mind, further, that the Roman canon law was not formally imposed, nor
