CONSTABLE, a title now confined to the lord high constable of England, the lord constable of Scotland, the constables of some royal castles in England, and to certain executive legal officials of inferior rank in Great Britain and the United States.
The Byzantine comes stabuli (KOmC's TOO ara/3Xov) was in his origin simply the imperial master of the horse, the head of the imperial stables, and a great officer of state. From the East the title was borrowed by the Frankish kings, and during the Caro lingian epoch a comes stabuli was at the head of the royal stud, the marshals (marescalci) being under his orders. The office sur vived and expanded in France under the Capetian dynasty; in the I ith century the constable has not only the general superintend ence of the royal stud, but an important command in the army— though still under the orders of the seneschal—and certain limited powers of jurisdiction. From this time onward the office of con stable tended, in France, continually to increase in importance. In the 14th century, owing to the confusion of his prerogatives as the royal lieutenant with his functions as constable, the constable was recognized as commander-in-chief of the army. The French kings never allowed the office of constable to become hereditary, and in Jan. 1627, after the death of Francois de Bonne, duc de Lesdiguieres, the office was suppressed by royal edict.
The jurisdiction of the constable, known as the connetablie et marechaussee de France, was held in fee until the abolition of the office of constable, when it became a royal court, presided over by the lieutenant general with the lieutenant particulier and the pro cureur du roi as assessors. Its seat was ultimately fixed at Paris, as part of the organization of the parlement. Its jurisdiction, which included all military persons and causes, was somewhat vaguely extended to embrace all crimes of violence, etc., com mitted outside the jurisdiction of the towns; it thus came often into conflict with that of the other royal courts.
The Gothic kings of Spain and, later on, the kings of Naples also, had their comites stabuli with similar functions.
In England the title of constable was unknown before the Con quest, though the functions of the office were practically those of the English staller. In the laws of Edward the Confessor the title constable is mentioned as the French equivalent for the English heretoga. After the Conquest the constable duly makes his ap pearance as "quartermaster general of the court and of the army." From the first, however, the title of constable was not confined to the constable proper, whose office in the reign of Stephen was made hereditary under the style of high constable (see LORD HIGH CONSTABLE) ; for under the Norman and Angevin kings, the title soon came to be loosely applied to any high military command. Its extension to officials exercising civil jurisdiction is not diffi cult to account for. In feudal society, based as this was on a military organization, it is easy to see how the military jurisdiction of the constables would tend to encroach on that of the civil magistrates. The origin of the modern chief and petty constables, however, is to be traced to the Statute of Winchester of 1285, by which the national militia was organized by a blending of the military system with the constitution of the shires. Under this act a chief or high constable was appointed in every hundred ; while in the old tithings and villatae the village bailiff was generally ap pointed a petty constable. The high and petty constables remained the executive legal officers in the counties until the County Police Acts of 1839 and 184o reorganized the county police. In 1842 an important statute was passed enacting that for the future no appointment of a petty constable, headborough, borsholder, tith ing-man or peace officer of the like description should be made for any parish at any court leet, except for purposes unconnected with the preservation of the peace, and providing, as a means of increasing the security of persons and property, for the appoint ment by justices of the peace in divisional petty sessions of fit persons or their substitutes to act as constables in the several parishes of England, and giving vestries an optional power of pro viding paid constables. Under the Acts of 1839 and 184o the es tablishment of a paid county police force was optional with the justices. With the Police Act of 1856 this optional power became compulsory, and thenceforth the history of the petty constable in England is that of the police. By the High Constables Act, 1869, the office of high constable was abolished, and, as the establish ment of an efficient police force rendered the general appointment of parish constables unnecessary, the appointment ceased, sub ject to the appointment by vestries of paid constables under the chief constable of the county (Parish Constables Act 1872). See further, POLICE.
"Special constables" are peace officers appointed to act on oc casional emergencies when the ordinary police force is thought to be deficient.
In the United States, outside the larger towns, the petty con stable retains much the same status as in England before the Act of 1842. He still has a limited judicial power as conservator of the peace, and often exercises various additional functions, such as that of tax-collector or overseer of the roads or other duties, as may be decided for him by the community which appoints him. In the old colonial days the office, borrowed from England, was of much importance. The office of high constable existed also in Phila delphia and New York, in the latter city until 183o, and in some towns the title has been retained for the chief of the police force.