being called the first, either because he was the first that reigned over whole Albania, having overthrown the Picts, and adjoined their kingdom to his own; or, as I read in the book of Meilross, "Quia primus leges Scoticanas instituit, quas vocant leges Mac-Alpin." III. While Britain was a Roman province, it was subject to the Roman laws: for the learning whereof the neighbouring nation served as a school; according to that of Juvenal, in the fifteenth satire: Gallia causidicos docuit facunda Britannos. We find a rescript of the emperor Severus, proposed at York, the year before he ended his life there: but that Papinian executed judicature there, I could wish might be proved by some witness of more antiquity than Stephanus Torcatulus was of: for it would redound unto some honour unto the nation, that the most skilful man in the civil law, that ever lived, should be appointed a minister of justice there. IV. After the departure of the Romans from hence, the Britons being driven by the Saxons into Cornwall and Wales, returned again to the customary laws of their own country; having no written law, for aught I can find, before the days of Howel-Dha, or Howel the Good; who succeeded his father Cadhel in the kingdom of South Wales, and Powis in the year 907. and his cousin Edwal Voel in the kingdom of North Wales, anno 940. He, having thus obtained the sovereignty of all Wales, in an assembly at Twy-Gwin upon the river Taff, at which were present one hundred and forty of the clergy, reformed the old laws, and established new; the book whereof is still extant both in the Welsh and in the Latin tongues. The Latin translator, who was then also present, is in the Welsh chronicle named Blegored, by e "Cernitis ignotos Latia sub lege Britannos." Catalect. d Lib. 1. C. de rei vendic. • Vide Dion Cass. lib. 76. in excerpt. Xiphilin. Pag. 127. Bale, Blegabridus Languariduss; of whom I find this mention in those barbarous verses, which are at the end of the Latin copy in the library of Corpus Christi, or Bennet College in Cambridge: Explicit editus liber bene finitus: Quem regi scripsit Languoridus, et quoque fuit Gornando cano tunc judice cotidiano Rex dabat ad partem dextram, non sumpserat artem. See Sir Henry Spelman's British Councils, page 408. where he is called Blangoridus, and styled "Clericus doctissimus." V. At what time Justinian published the body of the civil law, not only Britain, but all the rest of the western part of Europe also were disjoined from the Roman Empire; Italy and Sicily only excepted and in Italy itself the use thereof continued but a short time until at length in the year 1102. "Irnerius, philosophiam Bononiæ docens, Mathildis rogatu, Pandectas interpretari cœpit, et primus glossas in eas scripsit:" as Sigonius hath it in the argument of his Bononian history; and abbas Urspergensis in his Chronicle more fully: "Eisdem temporibus Dominus Warnerius libros legum, qui dudum neglecti fuerant, nec quisquam in eis studuerat, ad petitionem Mathilda Comitissæ renovavit; et secundum quod olim a divæ recordationis imperatore Justiniano compilati fuerant, paucis forte alicubi interpositish, eos distinxit," &c. VI. The laws and customs of the English Scots, Kingi David I. with the advice of the people and clergy of his whole kingdom, caused to be reduced into four books, according to the number of Justinian's Institutes: and in imitation thereof caused the like proem to be prefixed thereunto: "Regiam majestatem non solum armis contra rebelles, sibi, regnoque insurgentes, oportet esse decora Bal. Centur. 2. pag. 127. v. Blegabridus. In his interlineary gloss. Vid. Regiam majestatem in fine præfationis. tam; sed etiam legibus ad subditos, et populos pacifice regendos, oportet esse armatam; ut utraque tempora, scilicet pacis, et belli," &c. Whereby I gather, that in his time, betwixt the year 1124. and 1153. the notice of Justinian was brought into that kingdom. Although, if I may here freely deliver my mind, I am much rather induced to think, this "Regiam majestatem" to have been written after the year 1330. in the days of David II. than, as Skene would have us believe, in the reign of David I. as for other important reasons, so because in other copies of that book, Glanvil's Tractatus de Legibus, et consuetudinibus regni Angliæ, written in or after the thirty-third year of Henry II. is vouched, and mentioned often therein; as in the English preface, printed before Glanvil anno 1604. may be seen. But as for the use of the civil law in Scotland, although the subjection thereto be disclaimed by two several acts of parliament, quoted by Mr. Selden', yet the practice thereof is much the same in that kingdom as in France. VII. In the Norman chronicles I meet with the precise time of the first profession of the civil law in England, recorded in this wise: "Magister Vacarius, gente Longobardus, vir honestus et juris peritus, cum leges. Romanas anno ab incarnatione Domini 1149. in Anglia discipulos doceret; et multi, tam divites, quam pauperes, ad eum causa discendi confluerent; suggestione pauperum de codice, et digestis excerptos novem libros composuit, qui sufficiunt ad omnes legum lites, quæ in scholis frequentari solent decidendas, si quis eos perfecte noverit.” Whereby we may understand, what that Vacarius was, and what those leges Romanæ were; whereof Johannes Sarisburiensis thus writeth in the eighth book, and twenty-second chapter of his Polycraticus: "Tempore regis Stephani a regno jussæ sunt leges Romanæ, quas in Bri 1 Review, pag. 479. in Chronic. Norman. ab Andr. Duchesino, edit. ex biblioth. S. Victor. Paris anno 1619. pag. 983. tanniam domus venerabilis patris Theobaldi" Britanniarum primatis asciverat. Ne quis etiam libros retineret, edicto regio prohibitum est, et Vacario nostro indictum silentium. Sed, Deo faciente, eo magis virtus legis invaluit, quo eam amplius nitebatur impietas infirmare." By which we see, that the civil law (not the ecclesiastical, as some have imagined) was not with greater indiscretion rejected in the days of King Stephen, than it was with great fervour restored again in the days of his successor King Henry II. For in his days was the Polycraticus written: at the same time also flourished Willelmus de Glavile (or Glanvil) one of the followers of Thomas Becket, and afterwards bishop of Rochester: "In utroque jure scientiam commendabilem assecutus," as it is in the fourth book of the forecited quadrilogue: as Leland also in his book De scriptorib. Britann. noteth of Roger Hoveden the historian; not long after that, "Mediis studiorum suorum annis legibus Cæsarianis operam dedit; a quibus recta se contulit ad pontificias." His book De legibus, et consuetudinibus regni Angliæ, written much after the same manner, and in the same words commonly, that the Regiam majestatem of Scotland is; with the like proem out of Justinian's Institutes placed in the beginning of it. But Bracton, who after him drew a more full body of the common law toward the end of Henry III. stuffeth his book every where with quotations of the civil law, which to have been done also in the pleadings at the bar, the reports of the year books of Edward II. (vouched by Mr. Selden) do sufficiently testify. VIII. After the restitution of the imperial laws here, in the time of Henry II. public schools were erected for n Anno 1138. as it seems; when Theobald went to Rome, to get his pall. Whence Thomas Becket, (as we read in the Quadrilogue, or Quadripartite history of his life, lib. 1. cap. 5. edit. Par. 1495.) being bred in his family, “Juri civili operam dedit. Impetrata vero postea a Domino suo archiepiscopo transfretandi licentia, per annum in legibus studuit Bononiæ; postea Antisiodoro." • Selden, in Jano Anglor. pag. 89. lib. 2. sec. 43. Notes upon Fortescue, pag. 45. not. 21. and Review of hist. of tithes, pag. 490, 491. ad fin. P Review of the history of tithes, cap. 7. fin. the profession thereof in the city of London: for the suppressing whereof, in the year 1235. the king's writ was directed to the mayor and sheriffs: "Quod per totam civitatem London clamari faciant, et firmiter prohiberi, ne aliquis scholas regens de legibus in eadem civitate de cœtero ibidem leges doceat. Et si aliquis ibidem fuerit hujusmodi scholas regens, ipsum sine dilatione cessare faciant. Teste Rege' apud Bassing undecimo die Decembris." And yet all this notwithstanding, the English clergy remitted nothing of their diligence in the study of the civil law; as appeareth both by the relation of Matthew. Paris, at the year 1255. (which was the thirty-ninth of Henry III.) and by the reproof given unto them for it by Roger Bacon, who deceased anno Domini, 1292. under Edward I. in his Compendium theologiæ; cited at large by Mr. Selden in his notes upon Fortescue. IX. At length the profession of the civil law was estalished in both the universities; and recourse had to the sages thereof in weighty consultations; though with protestation, that the kingdom was not subject to the rule of that law as appeareth by the proceedings in the parliament, anno 11. Richardi II. related by the same Mr. Selden, both in the said notes', and in Jano Anglor". X. In Wales I met with the writings of Thomas Saincte, archdeacon of St. David's, who lived in the latter days of Henry VII. and the beginning of Henry VIII. and was a reader of the canon law in Aula profunda Oxoniæ: where he made an exhortation to his scholars to follow their studies, beginning thus: Multum præclari sacrati juris alumni, Salvete, insignes laudibus usque viri, &c. This Aula profunda, if I be not deceived, belonged to Selden, review of the history of tithes, pag. 491. ad fin. Claus. 19. Hen. III. Membran. 22. |