JUSTICIARY, CHIEF, of England (Capital"' justitiarius Anglia).
None either of tho English lawyers or legal antiquaries who have handled this subject havo given at all a satisfactory explanation of it. In order to comprehend the functions of the great officer, it is necessary first to understand those of "The Grand Seneschal', or Dapifer Senesccdlus, or Dapifcr Anyli2 : in modern phraseology, tho lord high steward—coma palati', major domus mice, or malre du palais. The word sentschakh, about the etymology of which opinions vary some what, meant originally a sort of steward in the household of the Frank kings. After their conquest of Gaul, it came to signify a high political • dignity. Dapifer means the same thing, being the Latin synonyme for it. This officer was the highest in the state after the king, executing all the chief offices of the kingdom as the king's representative. He WU not only at the head of the king's palace, but of all the depart ments of the state, civil and military, chief administrator of justice, and leader of the armies in war. This is proved not only to have been the case in France, by Ducange and other high authorities, as well as by the public records of that kingdom, but to have been ro also in England, by a document published by Madox, from the black and red books of the Exchequer, the celebrated Dialogus de Scaccario,' written in the time of Henry II. ; and likewise by certain MSS. preserved in Sir Robert Cotton's collection in the British Museum, particularly an old MS. entitled Quis sit Seneschallus Anglin, et quid ejus officium.' " (` Pict. Hist. Eng.' i. 567.) By the nature of the feudal system everything had a tendency to be given in fief. Among other things, the office of seneschal was given in fief too, and became hereditary among the Franke, Normans, and at the conquest of England, among the Anglo-Normans. In France, under the Merovingian dynasty, the office was in the family of Charles Martel, from whom sprung the Carlovingian dynasty ' • afterwards the Plantageuct counts- of Anjou were hereditary seneschals of France; and in England this high office was granted by William the Conqueror to the Grantmesnils, and thence came by marriage to the earls of Leicester. After the attainder of the family of Montfort, earl of
Leicester, the office was given to Edmund, the second son of king Henry III., and it then remained in the royal family till its abolition— Thomas Plantagenet, second son of king Henry IV., being the last permanent high steward, the office being conferred afterwards only pro un jai rice.
In France, when the office became hereditary in the counts of Anjou, it soon became) necessary, for various reasons, to have another seneschal, or dapifer, besides the hereditary one ; and this officer, whether he be considered as the representative or deputy of the hereditary seneschal, still took precedence, as appears from the charters of the French kings, of all the other great officers of state. In England also something of the same kind took place, but with this difference—that the various functions of the original grand seneschal, or senescallus Artifice, were divided into two parts, and committed to two distinct officers as his representatives : the judicial functions being committed to an officer styled the High, or rather Chief Justiciary ; the administrative and those relating to the affairs of the king's palace or household, to an officer styled, not the Senescallus Anglier, but the Senescallus, or Dapifer Regis. This explanation will be found to com pletely remove the confusion that has so long prevailed among the English historians, antiquaries, and lawyers on this subject. And this view of the subject, if it needed it, would be corroborated by the high privileges of the officer created in later times, to preside in the House of Lords at state trials, which officer, be It observed, is not "high justiciary," but "lord bigh steward," that is "Senescallus An ,lice." This explanation also removes the difficulty of accounting for the extraordinary powers of the lord high steward's court, which some English lawyers have attempted to got over by saying that the lord high steward succeeded to some of the powers of the high justiciary, whereas he merely exercises powers which he had delegated to the high justiciary.