with the local courts was further strengthened when Henry united several sheriffdoms under one of his justices. Following a natural tendency, the men employed for these offices were not the great barons, but new men, who rose by their talents, and were naturally upholders of the royal power and of order in opposition to the anarchical baronial party. To sum up; after the year 1108, when the local courts were re-established, both the Hundred and county courts were the same in constitution and in arrangement as before the Conquest. But they were connected with the central government; because matters in which the King was interested were set aside for the consideration of the Curia Regis, or travelling justiciary sent out from that body; and because the Norman lawyers had introduced the practice of issuing writs from the King’s court, whereby the King, in virtue of what is called his “equitable power,” that is, his power of securing justice where the law did not give it, prescribed the method of action in certain difficult cases. The Hundred court was sometimes a lower court for the arrangement of small debts; the Bailiff of the Hundred then presided. Sometimes it was the great court held only twice a year; the sheriff then presided, the court exercised criminal jurisdiction, and was known as the “Court Leet.” It also saw to the filling up of the divisions of ten men required by the system of Frankpledge; this was called “the view of frankpledge.” The court was then known as “the Sheriff’s Tourn.” Below these local courts were the feudal manor courts, the old motes of the township, now become the courts of the lord. But we must not suppose that the authority of the sheriff and the local courts (now virtually royal courts) was universal. Certain great lords enjoyed franchises, that is, exercised jurisdiction over several manors. If the lord had “sac and soc,” his court had the authority of the Court Leet. If he had “the view of frankpledge,” the suitors at his court were free from attendance at the Sheriff’s Tourn. His court was then in all points like the Hundred court, but independent of the sheriff. This double system Henry had apparently to submit to, watching the baronial power as well as he could, by means of the local courts and travelling justices. [Sidenote: The National Assembly.] It is to be carefully remembered that though the Curia Regis, representing the King’s council, attested charters, and revised and registered laws, it had no legislative authority. Both the imposition of taxes and the making of laws still rested with the King and his great council, the representative of the Witan, which had become a feudal court, and consisted chiefly of the King’s vassals. Their “counsel and consent” was a necessary condition of all legislation. STEPHEN. 1135-1154.