Again, all measures for the due interpretation and execution of the law protected the people at large against the usurpations of their strong neighbors. It is not to be forgotten that although in England the feudal landlords had, more than a century before, been deprived of their power to usurp jurisdiction over their vassals, and obliged to admit the king’s judges, still a great part of Europe was governed under the old plan. We have seen how, during the barons’ war, the party opposed to the king was divided between those who really desired the freedom of the people, and those who wished to restrict the king’s power in order to increase their own. In some important matters of judicial proceeding the interests of the crown and of the people at large were still united in opposition to the claims of the great land-owners. Hence the importance of regulating and improving the courts of provincial judicature, the limitation of the functions of the sheriffs, which fell constantly into the hands of local magnates; the organization of the sessions of the king’s judges, and the opening of ways by which suits, which could not be fairly or justly settled in the country, might be heard in the king’s courts at Westminster. It is to the early years of Edward I., that we owe the final division of the three great royal tribunals; the Court of Exchequer, in which were heard all causes that touched the revenue; that of King’s Bench, which determined suits in which the king was concerned, criminal questions on the matters, which under the name of “pleas of the crown” were reserved for his particular treatment; and that of Common Pleas, which heard suits between private individuals. Now these matters were apportioned to three distinct staffs of judges, instead of being heard indiscriminately by the whole or part of the judicial body. The circuits of judges of assize were defined during the same period of the reign. Many other measures for the protection of life and property helped to increase the feeling of security in the body of the people, to further the growth of loyalty, and at the same time to increase the royal income. [Sidenote: Statute of Winchester. ]