of the Exch.p.

520.] The power of the church was another rampart against royal authority; but this defence was also the cause of many mischiefs and inconveniencies.
The dignified clergy, perhaps, were not so prone to immediate violence as the barons; but as they pretended to a total independence on the state, and could always cover themselves with the appearances of religion, they proved, in one respect, an obstruction to the settlement of the kingdom, and to the regular execution of the laws.

The policy of the Conqueror was in this particular liable to some exception.

He augmented the superstitious veneration for Rome, to which that age was so much inclined, and he broke those bands of connection which, in the Saxon times, had preserved a union between the lay and the clerical orders.

He prohibited the bishops from sitting in the county courts; he allowed ecclesiastical causes to be tried in spiritual courts only;[**] and he so much exalted the power of the clergy, that of sixty thousand two hundred and fifteen knights' fees, into which he divided England, he placed no less than twenty-eight thousand and fifteen under the church.[**] The right of primogeniture was introduced with the feudal law; an institution which is hurtful by producing and maintaining an unequal division of private propeny; but is advantageous in another respect, by accustoming the people to a preference in favor of the eldest son, and thereby preventing a partition or disputed succession in the monarchy.
The Normans introduced the use of surnames, which tend to preserve the knowledge of families and pedigrees.