an appellation given to whatever belongs to the church: thus we say, ecclesiastical polity, jurisdiction, history, &c.

Blackstone's Comments

Ecclesiastical Courts. In the time of the Anglo-Saxons there was no sort of distinction between the lay and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction: the county court was as much a spiritual as a temporal tribunal: the rights of the church were ascertained and affected at the same time, and by the same judges, as the rights of the laity. For this purpose the bishop of the diocese, and the alderman, or in his absence the sheriff of the county, used to sit together in the county court, and had there the cognizance of all causes as well ecclesiastical as civil; a superior deference being paid to the bishop's opinion in spiritual matters, and to that of the lay judges in temporal. This union of power was very advantageous to them both: the presence of the bishop added weight and reverence to the sheriff's proceedings; and the authority of the sheriff was equally useful to the bishop, by enforcing obedience to his decrees in such refractory offenders as would otherwise have despised the thunder of mere ecclesiastical censures.

But so moderate and rational a plan was wholly inconsistent with those views of ambition that were then forming by the court of Rome. It soon became an established maxim in the papal system of policy, that all ecclesiastical persons, and all ecclesiastical causes, should be solely and entirely subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction only: which jurisdiction was supposed to be lodged in the first place and immediately in the Pope, by divine indefeasible right and investiture from Christ himself, and derived from the Pope to all inferior tribunals. Hence the canon law lays it down as a rule, that "facere deos a regibus honorandi sunt, non judicandi;" and places an emphatical reliance on a fabulous tale which it tells of the emperor Constantine. That when some petitions were brought to him, imploring the aid of his authority against certain of his bishops accused of oppression and injustice; he caused, (says the holy canon) the petitions to be burnt in their presence, dismissing them with this valediction: "Ite, et inter vos causae vestras discutite, quia dignum non est ut nos judicemus Deos."

It was not, however, till after the Norman conquest, that this doctrine was received in England; when William I. (whose title was warmly espoused by the monasteries which he liberally endowed, and by the foreign clergy whom he brought over in shoals from France and Italy, and planted in the best preferments of the English church) was at length prevailed upon to establish this fatal encroachment, and separate the ecclesiastical court from the civil: whether actuated by principles of bigotry, or by those of a more refined policy, in order to discountenance the laws of King Edward abounding with the spirit of Saxon liberty, is not altogether certain. But the latter, if not the cause, Ecclesiastical was undoubtedly the consequence, of this separation: for the Saxon laws were soon overborne by the Norman justiciaries, when the county court fell into disrepute by the bishop's withdrawing his presence, in obedience to the charter of the conqueror; which prohibited any spiritual cause from being tried in the secular courts, and commanded the suitors to appear before the bishop only, whose decisions were directed to conform to the canon law.

King Henry I. at his accession, among other restorations of the laws of King Edward the Confessor, revived this of the union of the civil and ecclesiastical courts. Which was, according to Sir Edward Coke, after the great heat of the conquest was past, only a restitution of the ancient law of England. This however was ill relished by the Popish clergy, who, under the guidance of that arrogant prelate Archbishop Anselm, very early disapproved of a measure that put them on a level with the profane laity, and subjected spiritual men and causes to the inspection of the secular magistrates: and therefore, in their synod at Westminster, 3 Hen. I. they ordained, that no bishop should attend the discussion of temporal causes; which soon dissolved this newly effected union. And, when upon the death of King Henry I. the usurper Stephen was brought in and supported by the clergy, we find one article of the oath which they imposed upon him was, that ecclesiastical persons and ecclesiastical causes should be subject only to the bishop's jurisdiction. And as it was about that time that the contest and emulation began between the laws of England and those of Rome, the temporal courts adhering to the former, and the spiritual adopting the latter, as their rule of proceeding; this widened the breach between them, and made a coalition afterwards impracticable; which probably would else have been effected at the general reformation of the church.

Ecclesiastical courts are various; as the Archdeacons', the Consistory, the court of Arches, the Peculiars, the Prerogative, and the great court of appeal in all ecclesiastical causes, viz. the Court of Delegates. See these articles.

As to the method of proceeding in the spiritual courts, it must (in the first place) be acknowledged to their honour, that though they continue to this day to decide many questions which are properly of temporal cognizance, yet justice is in general so able and impartially administered, in those tribunals (especially of the superior kind), and the boundaries of their power are now so well known and established, that no material inconvenience at present arises from this jurisdiction still continuing in the ancient channel. And, should any alteration be attempted, great confusion would probably arise, in overturning long established forms, and new-modelling a course of proceedings that has now prevailed for seven centuries.

The establishment of the civil law process in all the ecclesiastical courts was indeed a masterpiece of papal dexterity, as it made a coalition impracticable between them and the national tribunals, without manifest inconvenience and hazard. And this consideration had undoubtedly its weight in causing this measure to be adopted, though many other causes concurred. In particular, it may be here remarked, that the Pandects, or Ecclesiastical Corporations, are where the members that compose them are spiritual persons. They were erected for the furtherance of religion and perpetuating the rights of the church. See Corporations.

Ecclesiastic State. See Clergy.