SECTION I
LAW COURTS
j. The Central Common-Law Courts* the Circuit
Courts, and their Procedure.—As soon as the early dis-
order resulting from, the Norman Conquest had subsided,
the attempts to bridge the gap between central and local
government began. Kings who had a conquered country
before them, who felt their strength, would not be long
in finding occasion to make themselves felt at ever}7" point.
William II. brutally and directly seized wealth and power.
Neither he nor his famous minister was a statesman, and,
although they accomplished some things of importance
in their application of feudal principles to the church
and in developing the details of feudal obligation,1 then-
expedients, for the most part, appear gross and temporary.
A king and a minister of a different sort followed them.
The combined work of Henry 1 and Roger of Salisbury,
his justiciar, was fundamental. Their aim was the
orderly, peaceful, and efficient government of the whole
country and the strengthening and aggrandising of the
central power.
The king had more work to do and the king acted offi-
cially through his court. Hence this feudal council felt
keenly the pressure of business. In the earlier reigns, it
had been a comparatively simple and undifferentiated
body/but as it had more to do it developed. This de-
velopment was the institutional manifestation of a grow-
ing activity and effectiveness of the central power, and
1 See above, p, 121.
139