a speedy than a refined justice.

[Sidenote: County Court.]

[Sidenote: Ealdorman and Bishop.]

There was in the Saxon Constitution a great simplicity. The higher order
of courts were but the transcript of the lower, somewhat more extended
in their objects and in their power; and their power over the inferior
courts proceeded only from their being a collection of them all. The
County or Shire Court was the great resort for justice (for the four
great courts of record did not then exist). It served to unite all the
inferior districts with one another, and those with the private
jurisdiction of the thanes. This court had no fixed place. The alderman
of the shire appointed it. Hither came to account for their own conduct,
and that of those beneath them, the bailiffs of hundreds and tithings
and boroughs, with their people,--the thanes of either rank, with their
dependants,--a vast concourse of the clergy of all orders: in a word, of
all who sought or distributed justice. In this mixed assembly the
obligations contracted in the inferior courts were renewed, a general
oath of allegiance to the king was taken, and all debates between the
several inferior coördinate jurisdictions, as well as the causes of too
much weight for them, finally determined. In this court presided (for in
strict signification he does not seem to have been a judge) an officer
of great consideration in those times, called the Ealdorman of the
Shire. With him sat the bishop, to decide in whatever related to the
Church, and to mitigate the rigor of the law by the interposition of
equity, according to the species of mild justice that suited the
ecclesiastical character. It appears by the ancient Saxon laws, that the
bishop was the chief acting person in this court. The reverence in which