There was as yet, outside, at all events, of the ecclesiastical courts, no legal profession; there was no teaching of law other than Roman and canon law, but there was undoubtedly a flourishing school of Romano-canonical law in England. Its influence upon the formation of the English law must not be exaggerated; it was indirect, but it cannot have been insignificant. In this early and most vigorous stage of development, which has been called the golden age of English law, it is a factor not to be overlooked that many of the judges of the King's Court had some knowledge of a great system of law to which they could look for suggestion, for comparison, and experiment. The same influence is to be traced in the two famous law-books which illuminate the dawn of the common law. The Treatise on the Laws and Customs of England, which bears the name of Glanville, was written about 1188, and Bracton's great book, which has been called "the crown and flower of English mediæval jurisprudence," appeared about seventy years later. It is not unimportant to observe that, after Bracton, although English law produced year-books and abridgments, and some commentaries and treatises on special subjects, no work appeared that can truly be called institutionary until the publication of Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries in the second half of the eighteenth century.

It seems clear that the free and continuous development of the common law was checked soon after the time of Bracton. Even when he was writing his book, the barons, then on the eve of open war against King Henry III., were complaining, amongst other things, of the extension of the jurisdiction of the King's Court, and of the new forms of writs which were being issued without the consent of the Council and under no authority other than that of the Crown. By the provisions of Oxford, the chancellor is made to swear "that he will seal no writ, excepting writs of course, without the commandment of the king and of his council, who shall be

present." It is evident that before the year 1285, the claim of the King to issue through his Chancery, without express legislative sanction, writs which did not strictly follow the ancient forms, had been abandoned. Apparently this limitation of the jurisdiction of the King's Court gave rise to difficulties, for in the year 1285, by the Statute of Westminster, it was enacted that whenever from thenceforth it should fortune in the Chancery that in one case a writ was found, and in another like case falling under like law and requiring like remedy was found none, the Clerks of the Chancery should agree in making the writ, or, if they should be unable to agree, should refer the matter to the next Parliament, where by consent of men learned in the law a writ should be made, lest it might happen that the Court should fail to minister justice to complainants. This relaxation of the prohibition against the issue of new writs was strictly and narrowly construed, and had little practical effect.

The English law, as administered by the King's Court, had from the beginning depended essentially on forms. No cause of action was recognized unless it could be expressed in a writ. Prima facie legal rights depended on the list of writs known to the Chancery. But in the early days, when equity required it, the Chancery could add to the list. When this power was taken away and the list was closed, and we find that Parliament failed to complete the work which the Chancery and judges of the King's Court had begun-doing practically nothing by legislation after the reign of Edward I. to shape the law into an adequate and comprehensive system-it is not difficult to understand how it was that English law became a highly technical craft, an occult art, a study of ancient forms, and of the fictions and devices by which they were allowed to be evaded in order that justice might in some fashion be done; a study which for centuries afforded no subject for literature or

scientific treatment, and entered into no scheme of liberal education.*

There were, as we have seen, schools of law established at the English Universities at an early date, but the law taught was not the common law of England. It was the canon law, and probably for all practical purposes the canon law only, though the study of the civil law was perhaps never entirely neglected. Henry VIII., when he quarrelled with the Pope, prohibited the study of canon law at the Universities, and endeavoured, though not with any permanent success, to encourage the study of civil law in its place. But until Sir William Blackstone lectured at Oxford in the year 1754, no attempt was ever made, so far as I have been able to learn, to teach English law at either of the English Universities.

It is not generally remembered that the author of the famous commentaries on the laws of England was a poet; but in addressing myself to the remainder of my. task, and contemplating the condition of legal studies from the fourteenth to the beginning of the eighteenth century, I may perhaps be allowed to quote from Sir William Blackstone's Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse—.

"A formal band

In furs and coifs around me stand,
With sounds uncouth and accents dry,

That grate the soul of harmony.

Each pedant sage unlocks his store

Of mystic, dark, discordant lore,

And points with tottering hand the ways
That lead me to the thorny maze."

At the beginning of the fourteenth century we find the King's Court in its three divisions, the King's Bench, the

* See Maitland's note, Appendix A, to Pollock on Torts. It is outside the scope of this paper to trace the origin of the doctrines of equity, and of the jurisdiction which never ceased to be exercised by the King's Council, or in later days by the Lord Chancellor. Equity, in the modern technical sense, formed no subject of study until comparatively recent times.

Common Pleas, and Exchequer, sitting permanently at Westminster, which has become the "certain place" required by Magna Charta. We find the profession of the law at work in its two branches; for we read of attorneys on the one hand, and of sergeants and apprentices at law on the other. The latter class constituted the Bar. The attorney represented the client as his duly authorized agent, the barrister assisted him as an expert lawyer and advocate. The judges who in the thirteenth century had probably been selected usually from amongst the clerks of the Court or of the Chancery, and of whom many, if not most, had been ecclesiastics, were at the beginning of the fourteenth century nearly all laymen, and we find amongst them men who had been raised from the Bar to the Bench. The legal profession therefore had, even at this early date, assumed in all that was essential the form which, in England, it still retains. It appears to have been from the beginning under the control of the judges. In the year 1292 the King had appointed the Chief Justice and Justices of the Common Pleas “that they, according to their discretions, should provide and ordain from every county certain attornies and lawyers of the best and most apt for their learning and skill, who might do service to his court and people; and that those so chosen and no other should follow his Court and transact the affairs therein, the said King and his Council then deeming the number of seven score to be sufficient for that employment; but it was left to the direction of the said justices to add to that number, or diminish, as they should see fit."

(To be continued.)

60

VI. THE INTERNATIONAL LAW ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE, 1899.

THE meeting of the International Law Association this

year at Buffalo, in the United States, marks, in more than one way, a new era in the annals of this body. It is the first time the Conference has been held on American soil, and it is the first time that it has been held under its present intelligible name. Previously, the meetings have all been in Europe, and under the old title of "The Society for the Reform and Codification of the Law of Nations," a name both cumbersome in itself, and by no means setting out the objects and aims of the Association.

Before passing in brief review what was discussed and accomplished at the Conference, it would be churlish not to dwell for a few moments on the very hearty welcome the European members received from their American colleagues, and also from the whole Bar of the United States, whose annual meeting at Buffalo immediately preceded the Conference. We may even hope that the cordial greeting and lavish hospitality the members of the Conference received may be accepted as in some measure the result of the entente cordiale between the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race-for nearly all the visitors were English-because that feeling of brotherhood, stronger than any diplomatic alliance, will, so long as it exists—and that, we may now believe, will be for all future time-be a better omen for the peace of the world than even the best-intentioned resolutions of a dozen congresses of diplomatists. It is to be hoped that, before many years have passed, another and more largely attended Conference will be held in America, possibly on Canadian soil.

Previous to the meeting of the Conference, two prominent