The
same sentiments were experienced by the Saxon nobility;
and the service which they owed by their tenures, and the high
employments they sustained, called them often from the
management of their counties. The progress, too, of commerce,
giving an intricacy to cases, and swelling the civil code, added
to the difficulty of their office, and made them averse to its duties.
Sheriffs, therefore, or deputies, were frequently appointed to
transact their business; and though these were at first under
some subordination to the earls, they grew at length to be
entirely independent of them. The connection of jurisdiction and
territory ceasing to prevail, and the civil being separated from
the ecclesiastical power, they became the sole and proper
officers for the direction of justice in the counties.
"The hundred, however, and county courts were not equal of
themselves for the purposes of jurisdiction and order. It was
necessary that a court should be erected, of supreme authority,
where the disputes of the great should be decided, where the
disagreeing sentiments of judges should be reconciled, and where
protection should be given to the people against their fraud and
injustice.
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