includes twenty-one, and York three; besides the bishopric of the isle of Man, which was annexed to the province of York by king Henry VIII. Every diocese is divided into archdeaconries, whereof there are sixty in all; each archdeaconry into rural deaneries, which are the circuit of the archdeacon's and rural dean's jurisdiction, and every deanery is divided into parishes.

A parish is that circuit of ground which is committed to the charge of one parson, or vicar, or other minister having cure of souls therein. These districts are computed to be nearly ten thousand in number.

2. The civil division of the territory of England is into counties, of those counties into hundreds, of those hundreds into tithings or towns; which division, as it now stands, seems to owe its origin to king Alfred. One of the principal inhabitants of the tithing is annually appointed to preside over the rest, being called the tithing-man, the headborough, and in some countries the borsholder, or borough's-ealder, being supposed the most discreet man in the borough, town, or tithing.

Tithings, towns, or vills, are of the same signification in law; and are said to have had, each of them, originally a church and celebration of divine service, sacraments, and burials: though that seems to be rather an ecclesiastical, than a civil, distinction. The word town or vill is indeed, by the alteration of times and language, now become a generical term, comprehending under it the several species of cities, boroughs, and common towns.

A city is a town incorporated, which is or hath been the see of a bishop: and though the bishopric be dissolved, as at Westminster, yet still it remaineth a city. A borough is now understood to be a town, either corporate or not, that sendeth burgesses to parliament. Other towns there are, which are neither cities nor boroughs; some of which have the privileges of markets, and others not: but both are equally towns in law. To several of these towns there are small appendages belonging, called hamlets. These towns, as was before hinted, contained each originally but one parish, and one tithing; though many of them now, by the increase of inhabitants, are divided into several parishes and tithings; and, sometimes, where there is but one parish, there are two or more vills or tithings.

As ten families of freeholders made up a town or tithing, so ten tithings composed a superior division called a hundred, as consisting of ten times ten families. The hundred is governed by a highconstable or bailiff, and formerly there was regularly held in it the hundred court for the trial of causes, though now fallen into disuse. In some of the more Northern counties these hundreds are called Wapentakes.

An indefinite number of these hundreds make up a county or shire. Shire is a Saxon word signifying a division; but a county, comitatus, is plainly derived from comes, the count of the Franks; that is, the earl, or alderman (as the Saxons called him) of the shire, to whom the government of it was intrusted. This he usually exercised by his deputy,

the sheriff, shrieve, or shire-reeve, signifying the officer of the shire; on whom by process of time the civil administration of it is now totally devolved. In some counties there is an intermediate division, between the shire and the hundreds, as lathes in Kent, and rapes in Sussex, each of them containing about three or four hundreds a piece. Where a county is divided into three of these intermediate jurisdictions, they are called trithings, which were anciently governed by a trithing reeve. These trithings still subsist in the large county of York, where by an easy corruption they are denominated ridings; the north, the east, and the west-riding. The number of counties in England and Wales have been various, at different times: at present they are forty in England, and twelve in Wales.

Three of these counties, Chester, Durham, and Lancaster, are called counties palatine, and are so called a palatio; because the owners thereof, the earl of Chester, the bishop of Durham, and the duke of Lancaster, had in those counties jura regalia, as fully as the king hath in his palace; regalem potestatem in omnibus, as Bracton expresses it. In 27 Hen. VIII. the powers before-mentioned of owners of counties palatine were abridged; though still all writs are witnessed in their names, and all forfeitures for treason by the common law accrue to them.

Of these three, the county of Durham is now the only one remaining in the hands of a subject. The isle of Ely is not a county palatine, though sometimes erroneously called so, but only a royal

franchise the bishop having, by grant of king Henry I. jura regalia within the isle of Ely: whereby he exercises a jurisdiction over all causes, as well criminal as civil.

There are also counties corporate: which are certain cities and towns, some with more, some with less territory annexed to them; to which out of special grace and favour the kings of England have granted the privilege to be counties of themselves, and not to be comprised in any other county; but to be governed by their own sheriffs and other magistrates, so that no officers of the county at large have any power to intermeddle therein. Such are London, York, Bristol, Norwich, Coventry, and many others.

BOOK THE FIRST.

OF THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS.

CHAPTER 1.

OF THE ABSOLUTE RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUals.

THE objects of the laws of England are so very numerous and extensive, that, in order to consider them with any tolerable ease and perspicuity, it will be necessary to distribute them methodically, under proper and distinct heads.

In

Now, as municipal law is a rule of civil conduct, commanding what is right, and prohibiting what is wrong; it follows, that the primary and principal objects of the law are RIGHTS and WRONGS. the prosecution therefore of these commentaries, I shall follow this very simple and obvious division; and shall in the first place consider the rights that are commanded, and secondly, the wrongs that are forbidden, by the laws of England.

Rights are, however, liable to another subdivision: being either, first, those which concern and are annexed to the persons of men, and are then called jura personarum, or the rights of persons; or they are, secondly, such as a man may acquire over ex