Constable

A hiffh officer of state, established in England on the Norman Conquest, whose duties partook both of a military and civil character. He was at the same time commander in chief of the forces of the kingdom, and keeper of the peace of the nation. Crabb's Hist, Eng, Law, 101. Cowell. Lambard, cited ibid. He had judicial cognizance of all contracts touching deeds or feats of arms, {facta armorum^ and of war out of the realm, and of all matters pertaining to arms or war within the realm, which could not be determined by the common law. Spelman, voc. Constabularius. He had also the power of trying for high treasoui and the especial right of regulating all trials by combat, tilts, tournaments, and other feats of chivalrj. Jd, 1 Bl. Com, 855. He was one of the ^eat officers of state who sat in the Aula Begis: and, together with^the lord mareschal held also a separate court called the court of chivalry. 3 £L Com, 68. 4 Inst, 123. The office of the Saxon heretocli, as a chief mihtary leader, corresponded, in some respects, with this of constable; and the barbarous epithet stallarius was, according to Spelman, given to it in imitation of the continental term constabularius, being made up from a similar derivation, (Sax. stall, stabulum.) There is no doubt, however, that the office of constable of England was introduced by the Normans, being immediately derived from the similar office of constable of France, which was of high antiquity in that kingdom. Spelman, voc. Constabularius, JjL. JSdw. Conf. c. 36, cited ibid. It has been disused in England, except only upon great and solemn occasions, as the king's coronation and the like, ever since the attainder of Staffi^rd, duke of Buckingham, under Henry VIII. 1 Bl. Com. 365.