Its most probable
origin was on the conquest of the Heptarchy by Alfred, and the
amalgamation of their several codes of law into one, which became
common to them all. The authentic text of these enactments has not been
preserved; but their substance has been committed to many ancient
books and writings, so faithfully as to have been deemed genuine from
generation to generation, and obeyed as such by all. We have some
fragments of them collected by Lambard, Wilkins, and others, but
abounding with proofs of their spurious authenticity. Magna Charta
is the earliest statute, the text of which has come down to us in an
authentic form, and thence downward we have them entire. We do not know
exactly when the common law and statute law, the _lex scripta et non
scripta_, began to be contra-distinguished, so as to give a second
acceptation to the former term; whether before or after Prisot's day, at
which time we know that nearly two centuries and a half of statutes were
in preservation. In later times, on the introduction of the chancery
branch of law, the term common law began to be used in a third sense, as
the correlative of chancery law. This, however, having been long after
Prisot's time, could not have been the sense in which he used the term.
He must have meant the ancient _lex, non scripta_, because, had he used
it as inclusive of the _lex scripta_, he would have put his finger on
the statute which had enjoined on the judges a deference to the laws of
holy church.
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