or ever. Yet this custom does not impower him to use any
other conveyance, or even to lease them for seven years: for the
custom must be strictly pursued[q]. And, moreover, all special customs
must submit to the king's prerogative. Therefore, if the king
purchases lands of the nature of gavelkind, where all the sons inherit
equally; yet, upon the king's demise, his eldest son shall succeed to
those lands alone[r]. And thus much for the second part of the _leges
non scriptae_, or those particular customs which affect particular
persons or districts only.

[Footnote q: Co. Cop. Sec. 33.]

[Footnote r: Co. Litt. 15 _b._]

III. THE third branch of them are those peculiar laws, which by custom
are adopted and used only in certain peculiar courts and
jurisdictions. And by these I understand the civil and canon laws.

IT may seem a little improper at first view to rank these laws under
the head of _leges non scriptae_, or unwritten laws, seeing they are
set forth by authority in their pandects, their codes, and their
institutions; their councils, decrees, and decretals; and enforced by
an immense number of expositions, decisions, and treatises of the
learned in both branches of the law. But I do this, after the example
of sir Matthew Hale[s], because it is most plain, that it is not on
account of their being _written_ laws, that either the canon law, or
the civil law, have any obligation within this kingdom; neither do
their force and efficacy depend upon their own intrinsic authority;
which is the case of our written laws, or acts of parliament. They
bind not the subjects of England, because their materials were
collected from popes or emperors; were digested by Justinian, or
declared to be authentic by Gregory. These considerations give them no
authority here: for the legislature of England doth not, nor ever did,
recognize any foreign power, as superior or equal to it in this
kingdom; or as having the right to give law to any, the meanest, of
it's subjects. But all the strength that either the papal or imperial
laws have obtained in this realm, or indeed in any other kingdom in
Europe, is only because they have been admitted and received by
immemorial usage and custom in some particular cases, and some
particular courts; and then they form a branch of the _leges non
scriptae_, or customary law: or else, because they are in some other
cases introduced by consent of parliament, and then they owe their
validity to the _le