Law Courts 207
3. Origin and Early History of Equitable Jurisdiction,
Especially the Court of Chancery.—Royal prerogative,
the king's sovereign power as exercised in Ms central
court or council, had not, in putting forth such mighty
judicial branches as the common-law courts and the itin-
erant justice system,1 drained itself of authority or ex-
hausted its ability to create. It has been shown how, in
the"reign of Henry I., there were two regular manifesta-
tions of this central court: the fuller meeting of tenants-
in-chief, summoned at the three great yearly festivals
and at other times as occasion required, and the small body
of officials and barons in attendance on the king, which
the increasing business of the central government kept
quite continuously in session.2 The larger body, after
the dropping out of the minor barons and a partial change
in the basis of attendance, was, in the early fourteenth
century, the embryonic House of Lords;3 while what
there was left of the smaller body, after it had thrown off
the court system, was the early Council.4 But in both
of these, there remained the undifferentiated prerogative
power of the king; in conjunction with the king, either
might exercise what would now be distinguished as execu-
tive, legislative, or judicial functions. And even at the
date named, any conscious distinction between the two
bodies themselves must have been slight. One could
quite imperceptibly become the other. The smaller had?
perhaps, a more official character—certainly there was a
large body of officials—but it was attended by such of the
prelates and barons as the king wished at Ms court, ands
by a quite arbitrary summons of more prelates and barons,
it might become the larger body. While the bulk of judi-
cial business had, of course, gone to the court system,
the face of authority, his self-reliance, his practical good sense, his will-
ingness to compromise, his sincere though silent patriotism." The lack
in continental countries of almost everything which characterises England's
local system has led many continental writers to pick out the local magis-
tracy as the most distinctive and valuable feature of the English con-
stitution.
*"See Part III, § L, I. 2 See above, pp. 116-119.
3 See below, pp. 341,342. 4 Ibid., pp. 296-299.