Hitherto we have observed the progress of the Saxon laws, which, conformably to their manners, were rude and simple,—­agreeably to their confined situation, very narrow,—­and though in some degree, yet not very considerably, improved by foreign communication.  However, we can plainly discern its three capital sources.  First, the ancient traditionary customs of the North, which, coming upon this and the other civilized parts of Europe with the impetuosity of a conquest, bore down all the ancient establishments, and, by being suited to the genius of the people, formed, as it were, the great body and main stream of the Saxon laws.  The second source was the canons of the Church.  As yet, indeed, they were not reduced into system and a regular form of jurisprudence; but they were the law of the clergy, and consequently influenced considerably a people over whom that order had an almost unbounded authority.  They corrected, mitigated, and enriched those rough Northern institutions; and the clergy having once, bent the stubborn necks of that people to the yoke of religion, they were the more easily susceptible of other changes introduced under the same sanction.  These formed the third source,—­namely, some parts of the Roman civil law, and the customs of other German nations.  But this source appears to have been much the smallest of the three, and was yet inconsiderable.

The Norman Conquest is the great era of our laws.  At this time the English jurisprudence, which, had hitherto continued a poor stream, fed from some few, and those scanty sources, was all at once, as from a mighty flood, replenished with a vast body of foreign learning, by which, indeed, it might be said rather to have been increased than much improved:  for this foreign law, being imposed, not adopted, for a long time bore strong appearances of that violence by which it had been first introduced.  All our monuments bear a strong evidence to this change.  New courts of justice, new names and powers of officers, in a word, a new tenure of land as well as new possessors of it, took place.  Even the language of public proceedings was in a great measure changed.

FOOTNOTES: 

[83] Decreta illi judiciorum juxta exempla Romanorum cum consilio sapientium constituit.—­Beda, Eccl.  Hist.  Lib.  II. c. 5.

[84] Leg.  AElfred. 38, De Pugna.

[85] Justum est ut proles matrem sequatur.—­Edric and Lothaire.

[86] Negatio potior est affirmatione.  Possessio proprior est habenti quam deinceps repetenti.—­L.  Cnut.

END OF VOL.  VII.