When the Imperial government ceased in other countries, the
natives preserved many of its institutions, which the conquerors
incorporated with their own laws; but our barbarian ancestors
eradicated every prior establishment, and transplanted the manners of
the wilds of Germany into the new solitude which they had made. After
their conversion, they associated the heads of the clergy with their
nobles, and both equally exercised the functions of civil magistrates.
It is plain that the bishop was the sole judge of the clergy in
criminal cases: that he alone decided their differences, and that to
him appertained the cognizance of certain offences against the rights
of the Church and the sanctions of religion; but as it was his duty to
sit with the sheriff in the court of the county, his ecclesiastical
became blended with his secular jurisdiction, and many causes, which
in other countries had been reserved to the spiritual judge, were
decided in England before a mixed tribunal. This disposition continued
in force till the Norman Conquest; when, as the reader must have
formerly noticed, the two judicatures were completely separated by the
new sovereign; and in every diocese "Courts Christian," that is, of
the bishop and his archdeacons, were established after the model and
with the authority of similar courts in all other parts of the Western
Church.
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