The Constitutional History of England

42 Constitutio 9 za Z History PERIODFor the Conquest had not destroyed the shire moot. Itbecame the county court. The Norman kings seem to haveseen its value as a counterpoise to feudalism. To a certainextent the feudal principle that all public rights and dutiesare connected with land holding had, even before the Conquest,modified the constitution of the ancient assembly, ithad become an assembly of free land-owners. After theConquest the qualification became more definite; the freeholderwas entitled and was bound to be present. But acourt formed by all the freeholders of a shire is not, you willsee, a court formed upon feudal lines. In such an assemblythe tenants in chief of the crown have to meet their ownvassals on a footing of legal equality ; a tenant may findhimself sitting as the peer of his own lord. This retentionof the old courts is of vast importance in the history ofparliament. In Henry 1's day the county court was held,as in the days of the Confessor, twice a year. More frequentassemblies seem to have become necessary. By the charterof 1217, it is ordered that the county court shall not meetmore often than once a month; monthly sessions seem tohave been common.For a long time after the Conquest the county court remainedwhat it was before the conquest, the great ordinarycourt of litigation for all the men of the shire. The growthof the feudal courts (of which hereafter) had to some extentdiverted business from it; on the other hand, the king usedit as a check on the feudal courts. At the petition of a suitorsuggesting that he could not get justice from the lord's court,the king would direct the sheriff to intervene and remove thecase into the county court. Gradually, however, the countycourt began to lose its importance as a judicial tribunal. Thiswas due, however, not to the rivalry of the feual courts, butto the ever growing vigour of the king's own court, whichbegan to throw open its doors to all suitors. Of this concentrationof justice something has been said already andmore must be said hereafter. But by the end of Edward I'sreign, the king's own courts had already practically becomecourts of first instance for all matters of much importance.The county court had jurisdiction in personal actions (i.e.IThe County Courtactions in which land or rights connected with land were notclaimed) up to 40 shillings, and jurisdiction in actions for landwhen default of justice was made in a feudal court, but inone way or another litigants could generally take their casesto the king's courts.Rut while the county court was thus losing its high placeas a judicial tribunal, it had been becoming the very foundationof the political constitution. When in the middle of thethirteenth century we find elected representatives called toform part of the national assembly, of a common councilof the realm, or parliament, they are the representativesof the county courts. They are not the representatives ofunorganized collections of men, they are the representatives,we might almost say, of corporations. The whole countyis in theory represented by its court. So much is this thecase that the language of the time draws no distinctionbetween the two-the same word comitatus serves to describeboth the county, the geographical district, and the assembly.The king in his financial necessities has treated with thecounties, long before the counties were ordered to sendrepresentative knights to parliament. But the corporatenature of the county, the identity of the county and thecounty court is best brought out by entries on the judicialrolls, entries which enable us to see the county in the daysof Richard and of John. The king's itinerant justices fromtime to time visit the counties; the whole county (totuscomitatus), i.e. the body of freeholders, stands before them ;it declares what the county has been doing since the lastvisitation; the county can give judgment; the county cangive testimony; the county can be punished by fines andamercements when the county has done wrong ; if the countyhas given false judgment, the county can be summoned toWestminster; four knights must be sent to represent it; hewho has suffered by its false judgment may challenge thecounty to fight; and the county fights by the body of thecounty champion. Even the principle of election has beenlong growing before the day when the county is called on toelect members of parliament. In I 194, for example, coronersare first instituted ; three knights and one clerk are to be