" Introduction to Gilbert's History of the Common
Pleas, p. 2, note.
Kelham says, "Let us consult our own lawyers and historians, and
they will tell as that Alfred, Edgar, and Edward the Confessor,
were the great compilers and restorers of the English Laws."
Kelham's Preliminary Discourse to the Laws of William the
Conqueror, p. 12. Appendix to Kelham's Dictionary of the Norman
Language.
"He (Alfred) also, like another Theodosius, collected the various
customs that he found dispersed in the kingdom, and reduced and
digested them into one uniform system, or code of laws, in his
som-bec, or liber judicialis (judicial book). This he compiled
for the use of the court baron, hundred and county court, the
court-leet and sheriff's toarn, tribunals which he established
for the trial of all causes, civil and criminal, in the very
districts wherein the complaints arose." 4 Blackstone, 411.
Alfred himself says, "Hence I, King Alfred, gathered these
together, and commanded many of those to be written down which
our forefathers observed those which I liked and those which
I did not like, by the advice of my Witan, I threw aside.
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