CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
OF COURTS ECCLESIASTICAL, MILITARY, AND MARITIME,
BESIDES the ſeveral courts, which were treated of in the preceding chapter, and in which all injuries are redreſſed, that fall under the cognizance of the common law of England, or that ſpirit of equity which ought to be it's conſtant attendant, there ſtill remain ſome other courts of a juriſdiction equally public and general: which take cognizance of other ſpecies of injuries, of an eccleſiaſtical, military, and maritime nature; and therefore are properly diſtinguifhed by the title of eccleſiaſtical courts, courts military, and courts maritime.
I. Before I deſcend to conſider particular eccleſiaſtical courts, I muſt firſt of all in general premiſe, that in the time of our Saxon anceſtors there was no fort of diſtinction between the lay and the eccleſiaſtical juriſdiction: the county court was as much a ſpiritual as a temporal tribunal: the rights of the church were aſcertained and aſſerted at the ſame time and by the ſame judges as the rights of the laity. For this purpofe the biſhop of the dioceſe, and the alderman, or in his abſence the ſheriff of the county, uſed to ſit together in the county court, and had there the cognizance of all cauſes as well eccleſiaſtical as civil: a ſuperior deference being paid to the biſhop's opinion in ſpiritual matters, and to that of the lay judges in temporal[1] . This union of power was very advantageous to them both : the pre-
- ↑ Celeberrimo huic conventui epiſcopus et aldermannus interſunto; quorum alter jura divina , alter humana populum edoceta. LL. Eadgar. c. 5.
