friends and attendants of the king. It assisted the king in his judicial work, its authority being as undefined as his own.the same time, the Curia undertook financial duties and in this way was the parent of the Court of Exchequer (curia regis ad scaccarium). The members were called »justices,» and in the king «s absence the justiciar presided over the court. A further step was taken by Henry П. In 1178 he appointed five Curia members to form a special court of justice, which became known as the Court of Common Pleas. Initially, this court »s justices, like the other members of the Curia, followed the king« s court from place to place, but Magna Carta (1215) provided for the court »s establishment in one place, and it thus became a stationary judicial body. The Court of King «s (or Queen» s) Bench also developed out of the Curia Regis. This court continued to move about with the monarch until the 14 th century, at which time it too lost its close connections with the king and simply became one of the superior courts of common law. The Court of Chancery was also an offshoot of the Curia Regis. About the time of Edward I (reigned 1272-1307), the executive and advising duties of the Curia Regis came to be handled by a select group, the king s secret council, which later came to be called the Privy Council. From the Privy Council there later developed the Cabinet. [2]
.3 Magna Carta
.3.1 Struggle for the Limitation of the King «s Power13 th century began under a new king, the second son of Henry П, and a third Plantagenet, John, nicknamed very significantly the Lackland, In the feudal medieval triangle «the crown - the barons - the church» he was rash enough to fight both the barons and the church simultaneously, under the unpropitious circumstances of inefficiently conducted permanent warfare with the king of France who was bent on reconquering the Anjou lands. [3, p.52] had already made himself unpopular with the three most important groups of people - the nobles, the merchants and the Church. John was unpopular mainly because he was greedy. The feudal lords in England had always run their own law courts and profited from the fines paid by those brought to court. But John took many cases out of their courts and tried them in the king »s courts taking the money for himself.was normal for the feudal lord to make a payment to the king when his daughter was married, but John asked for more than was the custom. In the same way, when a noble died, his son had to pay money before he could inherit his father «s land. In order to enlarge his own income, John increased the amount they had to pay. In other cases when a noble died without a son, it was normal for the land to be passed on to another noble family. John kept the land for a long time, to benefit from its wealth. He did the same with the bishoprics. As for the merchants and towns, he taxed them at a higher level than ever before. [4, p.28] 1204 king John became even more unpopular with his nobles. The French king invaded Normandy and the English nobles lost their lands there. The confiscation of English possessions in France meant great losses to Norman barons. In fact guarding his vassals » possessions was one of the duties of a feudal king, and this lapse made John extremely unpopular. However, he did not leave bad enough alone but he drained the treasury and strained the patience of hi...
