some feudal maxims and the traditions of an uncertain custom, made this
recourse to the spiritual courts the more necessary, where they could
judge with a little more exactness by the lights of the canon and civil
laws.

This jurisdiction extended itself by connivance, by necessity, by
custom, by abuse, over lay persons and affairs. But the immunity of the
clergy from lay cognizances was claimed, not only as a privilege
essential to the dignity of their order, supported by the canons, and
countenanced by the Roman law, but as a right confirmed by all the
ancient laws of England.

Christianity, coming into England out of the bosom of the Roman Empire,
brought along with it all those ideas of immunity. The first trace we
can find of this exemption from lay jurisdiction in England is in the
laws of Ethelred;[79] it is more fully established in those of
Canute;[80] but in the code of Henry I. it is twice distinctly
affirmed.[81] This immunity from the secular jurisdiction, whilst it
seemed to encourage acts of violence in the clergy towards others,
encouraged also the violence of others against them. The murder of a
clerk could not be punished at this time by death; it was against a
spiritual person, an offence wholly spiritual, of which the secular
courts took no sort of cognizance. In the Saxon times two circumstances
made such an exemption less a cause of jealousy: the sheriff sat with
the bishop, and the spiritual jurisdiction was, if not under the
control, at least under the inspection of the lay officer; and then, as
neither laity nor clergy were capitally punished for any offence, this
privilege did not create so invidious and glaring a distinction between
them. Such was the power of the clergy, and such the immunities, which
the king proposed to diminish.