or in the high court of the kingdom.

In the territory denominating an earl, if it were all his
own, the courts held, and the profits of that jurisdiction were
to his own use and benefit. But if he had but some part of his
county, then his jurisdiction and courts, saving perhaps in those
possessions that were his own, were held by him to the King's use
and benefit; that is, he commonly supplied the office which the
sheriffs regularly executed in counties that had no earls, and
whence they came to be called viscounts. The court of the county
that had an earl was held by the earl and the bishop of the
diocese, after the manner of the sheriffs' turns to this day; by
which means both the ecclesiastical and temporal laws were given
in charge together to the country. The causes of vavasors or
vavasories appertained to the cognizance of this court, where
wills were proved, judgment and execution given, cases criminal
and civil determined.

The King's thanes had the like jurisdiction in their thane
lands as lords in their manors, where they also kept courts.

Besides these in particular, both the earls and King's
thanes, together with the bishops, abbots, and vavasors, or
middle thanes, had in the high court or parliament in the kingdom
a more public jurisdiction, consisting first of deliberative
power for advising upon and assenting to new laws; secondly,
giving counsel in matters of state and thirdly, of judicature
upon suits and complaints. I shall not omit to enlighten the
obscurity of these times, in which there is little to be found of
a methodical constitution of this high court, by the addition of