nature, by the most opportune available means, provided no jurisdictional impediments 
stood in the road. 178 
The amount of innovating ordinance by the King in Council or in Parliament 
was not great. This was not alone due to the fact that to set the engines 
of change in motion some earnest "beseeker" was usually necessary. It was 
partly because of the coexistence of dominion councils or local parliaments 
where the lesser matters of legal refurbishment could be handled. The most 
active of these appear to have been the Irish bodies, and the most motionless 
the councils of the Prince of Wales. The contrast may be simply because so 
little is known about the nonadministrative work of the Welsh councils, but it 
may also derive from the fact that both the governed and the governors were 
inclined to treat the Statute of Rhuddlan as a charter of franchise that left 
with the crown the legislative initiative. In Gascony the estates which convened 
occasionally were a body which had no recognized legislative power 179 
and the ordaining functions were exercised in the local council which appears 
to have operated in imitation of the King's Council, although we do not know 
upon what principles it was necessary for the seneschal or king's lieutenant 
to act upon advisement. 180 These matters, like the other phases of the medieval 
imperial administration, still await the searching hands of scholars. 
The one aspect of the enactment problem which is wrapped in the greatest 
obscurity relates to the central control over the changes made by local bodies. 
If a matter was sub judice, as in the case of appeal, the device of certification 
of local practice had been available since the time of Henry 111. By this means 
it was possible to accept or to reject the practice, exactly as the common law 
courts could pass upon an English usage or by-law. This, however, was a 
fortuitous method of control and was scarcely a substitute for an administrative 
supervision such as came into being with the Tudors. We are disposed 
to believe that no studied supervision existed except as to Ireland, and that as 
to other dominions central action was extraordinary, that is, it was exercised by 
way of specific relief or, occasionally, by prohibition after the fact. 
The reasons for a particular policy with respect to Ireland are obvious. The 
Anglo-Norman establishment long maintained the characteristics of a colony, 
178 The existence of some grounds of distinction, 
however, is suggested by a letter of Edward 
111 to the Sire d'Albret (1372) in 3 Archives 
historiques du departement de la 
Gironde, 275. 
179 Cf. Lodge, Gascony under English Rule, 
146-47. The meeting at Angouleme of 1368 is 
remembranced in 37 Archives historiques du 
departement de la Gironde, 369. 
180 p or exam pi ei tne ordinance of Oliver 
Ingham (1333) respecting costs in Dax courts 
is made with the advice of his council (37 ibid., 
232); similarly the ordinance of the Duke of 
Lancaster (1389) makes a recital of conciliar 
advice (ibid., 448); but his ordinance for Dax 
°f T 395 (ibid., 440) is apparently his own act. 
Cf., further the recommendation of Henry VI 
to John Radcliffe that he take the advice of his 
council on imposts for defense (16 ibid., 4).