Finally, on this point. Conclusive proof that the legislation of the king was of little or no authority, is found in the fact _that the kings enacted so few laws_. If their laws had been received as authoritative, in the manner that legislative enactments are at this day, they would have been making laws continually. Yet the codes of the most celebrated kings are very small, and were little more than compilations of immemorial customs. The code of Alfred would not fill twelve pages of the statute book of Massachusetts, and was little or nothing else than a compilation of the laws of Moses, and the Saxon customs, evidently collected from considerations of convenience, rather than enacted on the principle of authority. The code of Edward the Confessor would not fill twenty pages of the statute book of Massachusetts, and, says Blackstone, "seems to have been no more than a new edition, or fresh promulgation of Alfred's code, or _dome-book_, with such additions and improvements as the experience of a century and a half suggested."--_1 Blackstone_, 66.[40]
The Code of William the Conqueror[41] would fill less than seven pages of the statute book of Massachusetts; and most of the laws contained in it are taken from the laws of the preceding kings, and especially of Edward the Confessor (whose laws William swore to observe); but few of his own being added.
The codes of the other Saxon and Norman kings were, as a general rule, less voluminous even than these that have been named; and probably did not exceed them in originality.[42] The Norman princes, from William the Conqueror to John, I think without exception, bound themselves, and, in order to maintain their thrones, were obliged to bind themselves, to observe the ancient laws and customs, in other words, the "_lex terræ_," or "_common law_" of the kingdom. Even Magna Carta contains hardly anything other than this same "_common law_," with some new securities for its observance.
How is this abstinence from legislation, on the part of the ancient kings, to be accounted for, except on the supposition that the people would accept, and juries enforce, few or no new laws enacted by their kings? Plainly it can be accounted for in no other way. In fact, all history informs us that anciently the attempts of the kings to introduce or establish new laws, met with determined resistance from the people, and generally resulted in failure. "_Nolumus Leges Angliæ mutari_," (we will that the laws of England be not changed,) was a determined principle with the Anglo-Saxons, from which they seldom departed, up to the time of Magna Carta, and indeed until long after.[43]