which went on in his other continental possessions; yet, as in finance, England and Normandy plainly took the lead in legal literature and in legal development. Indeed, the distinction between justice and finance is less sharp than we might at first suppose, for the growth of jurisdiction meant increased profit from fees and fines, and heavy payments were necessary to secure the intervention of the royal judges. In this sense Henry has often been called, and rightly, a seller of justice, but his latest biographer has pointed out that "if the commodity was expensive it was at least the best of its kind, and there is a profound gulf between the selling of justice and of injustice. A bribe might be required to set the machine of the law in motion, but it would be unavailing to divert its course when once started."[1] The wheels of government are turned by self-interest as well as by unselfish statesmanship.
Of the many judicial reforms of Henry's reign none is more significant than the measures which he took for extending the use of the jury as a method of trial in the royal courts, and none illustrates better the relation of Norman to English institutions. Characteristic as the jury is in the history of English government and of English law, as at once the palladium of personal liberty and the basis of representative institutions in Parliament, it is a striking fact that originally it was "not popular but royal," not English but Norman, or rather
- ↑ Salzmann, Henry II, p. 176.
