Page:The Public Records and The Constitution.djvu/43

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AND THE CONSTITUTION
39

Supreme Court of Judicature.includes also the Court of Appeal, and has had transferred to it, with other appellate jurisdictions, that of the Courts known as the Exchequer Chamber, erected partly in the reign of Edward III and partly in the reign of Elizabeth.

Functions of the ancient Curia Regis again brought together after a long separation.Thus a very large portion of the functions of the ancient Curia Regis, after a separation extending over many centuries, have again been brought together, nominally if not really, into one Court, which, in the Division including Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty matters, has also absorbed a considerable portion of the old ecclesiastical jurisdiction as well as the High Court of Admiralty.

The old King's Court or Council six principal subdivisions.At the beginning of this lecture I asked you to think of the Conqueror's Court or Council, and the records which it brought into being, as the starting-points of our Constitution and of our Public Records. After more than eight hundred years you may still see that old King's Court represented in six principal subdivisions, though some of them have various branches. These are (1) the Parliament (including, of course, the House of Lords, with its legal jurisdiction, as well as the House of Commons); (2) the Privy Council, with its offshoots; (3) the Supreme Court of Judicature, with the Lord Chancellor at its head; (4) the Secretaries of State, who are officially the Chancellor's offspring; (5) the Treasury, with its control over various departments; and (6) the group of Commissions for various purposes, of which the model may be found in the Commissions that resulted in Domesday Book.