STATUTE. Bills which have passed through the houses of lords and com mons and received the royal assent be come Acts of parliament, and are some times spoken of collectively as forming the body of statutes of the realm. But a more restricted application of the word is generally in use, by which private acts of parliament [BILL IN PARLIA MENT] are excluded, and even public acts when their purpose is temporary. The application is still more restricted when the measures of the early parlia ments are the subject in question, for many acts passed and received the royal assent which belong to the class of public acts and are found at large on the Rolls of Parliament, which are not accounted statutes in the sense in which that word is ordinarily used.
No strict definition can be given of those results of the deliberations in par liament to which the king has signified his assent, which are now called the Statutes of the realm. We may distinguish hem from other enactments of early times, as follows : they were at a very remote period separated from the rest, written in books apart from the rest, and received by the courts of law as of equal authority with the antient customs of the realm.
Probably also they have, with very lbw exceptions, a more general bearing than the other public acts which are found upon the rolls of parliament.
Three volumes, preserved in the court of Exchequer, and now in the custody of the Master of the Rolls, contain the body of those enactments which are called statutes. One volume contains the statutes passed before the beginning of the reign of Edward III. ; and the other two, those from I Edward III. to 7 Henry VIII., all very fairly written. These may be considered as the manu scripts of the early statutes of superior value, if not of superior antiquity as to the earlier portions, to the many similar collections which are in the libraries of the inns of court, of the universities, of the British Museum, and in some other depositories public and private. These numerous manuscript copies of the sta tutes are in substance pretty nearly the same, though some of these collections contain statutes which are not admitted into others. These books are not con
sidered in the light of authorised enrol ments of the statutes. For the authentic and authoritative copies, if any question arises, recourse must be had (I) to what are called the Statute Rolls at the Tower, which are six rolls containing the statutes from 6 Edward I. to 8 Edward IV., ex• cept from 8 to 25 Henry VI. ; (2) to the enrolments of acts of parliament which are preserved at the Rolls chapel from I Richard III. ; (3) to exemplifications and transcripts with writs annexed, signifying that they were transmitted by authority to certain courts or other parties, who were required to take notice of them, of which many remain in the Exchequer and elsewhere ; (4) in those since 12 Henry VII., to the original acts in the parliament office; (5) the rolls and jour nals of parliament; (6) the close, patent, fine, and charter rolls at the Tower ; on which statutes are sometimes found.
With the parliament of the reign oL Richard III. began the practice of print ing, and iu that manner publishing, the acts passed in each session. This fol lowed very soon on the introduction of printing into England. Before that time it had been a frequent practice to trans mit copies of the acts as passed to the sheriffs of the different shrievalties to be by them promulgated. The practice of printing the sessional statutes has con tinued to the present time.
Before the first of Richard III. the aid of the press bad been called in to give extended circulation to the older statutes. Before 1481 it is believed that an abridg ment of the statutes was printed by Let ton and Machlinia, which contains none later than 33 Henry VI., 1455. To the next year is assigned, by those who have zonsidered this subject, a collection, not abridged, from 1 Edward III. to 22 Ed ward IV. Next to these in point of anti quity is to be placed a collection printed by Pynson about 1497, who also, in 1508, printed what he entitled Antigua Sta tute,' containing Magna Charts, Charts de Forests, the Statutes of Merton, Marl bridge, and Westminster primum and secundum. This was the first publica tion of those very early statutes.