legislative principle. They seemed rather desirous of enriching
themselves by the abuses in the Church than earnest to correct them. One
day they plundered and the next day they founded monasteries, as their
rapaciousness or their scruples chanced to predominate; so that every
attempt of that kind, having rather the air of tyranny than reformation,
could never be heartily approved or seconded by the body of the people.


The bishops must always be considered in the double capacity of clerks
and barons. Their courts, therefore, had a double jurisdiction: over the
clergy and laity of their diocese for the cognizance of crimes against
ecclesiastical law, and over the vassals of their barony as lords
paramount. But these two departments, so different in their nature, they
frequently confounded, by making use of the spiritual weapon of
excommunication to enforce the judgments of both; and this sentence,
cutting off the party from the common society of mankind, lay equally
heavy on all ranks: for, as it deprived the lower sort of the fellowship
of their equals and the protection of their lord, so it deprived the
lord of the services of his vassals, whether he or they lay under the
sentence. This was one of the grievances which the king proposed to
redress.

As some sanction of religion is mixed with almost every concern of civil
life, and as the ecclesiastical court took cognizance of all religious
matters, it drew to itself not only all questions relative to tithes and
advowsons, but whatever related to marriages, wills, the estate of
intestates, the breaches of oaths and contracts,--in a word, everything
which did not touch life or feudal property.

The ignorance of the bailiffs in lay courts, who were only possessed of