The origins of capitalis justitiarius, the chief justiciar, who had the status of the head of the royal administration and the king's deputy in medieval England, still remain obscure, leaving a mystery to be explained. About one hundred years ago, W.Stubbs thought that the office went back to the reign of William the Conqueror. Rejecting Stubbs' view, H.G.Richardson and G.O.Sayles maintain that Roger of Salisbury was the first holder of the office and lend a crucial importance to the administrative developments under King Henry I.D.Bates says that it came into existence in 1170s as the result of combination of two functions: the head of the royal administration and the regent. The author accepts Richardson and Sayles' conclusion that Roger of Salisbury was capitalis justitiarius and, simultaneously, agrees with Bates' view that the office was established under King Henry II. Henry of Huntingdon and Other chroniclers did not call Roger of Salisbury capitalis justitiarius, but rather justitiarius totius Angliae. Though Richardson and Sayles argue that justitiarius totius Angliae, whose functions were not confined to any one country, should be distinguished from capitalis justitiarius, the author's opinion is that justitiarius totius Angliae was the same office as capitalis justitiarius under the Norman kings. Roger of Howden, in the later twelfth century, described Ranulf de Glanville, the great justiciar under King Henry II, as summus justitiarius totius Angliae. Moreover, if Roger of Salisbury had the two different titles and capitalis justitiarius was the superior of the two, it is difficult to understand why chroniclers called Roger of Salisbury justitiarius totius Angliae only. The author holds that Roger of Salisbury was certainly the head of Henry I's government, not because he was capitalis justitiarius, but because he was especially trusted by the king and was given a great deal of authority to which no title was attached. Capitalis justitiarius was neither the head of the royal administration nor the regent under the Norman kings. When Henry II became king after the civil wars of Stephen's reign in 1154, the two kings agreed, as two chroniclers reported, that those who had been dispossessed or disinherited should be restored to their own. To pacify the country and to settle disputes among lords and tenants, Henry II and his advisers developed the writ of right and the assize of novel disseisin and, pursuing legal reforms, expanded royal jurisdiction. Under the circumstances in which the functions of justitiarii regis became more and more important, capitalis justitiarius obtained a status of the head of royal administration and the king's deputy during the reign of Henry II.

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It is known to all that many shantang 善堂 were set up mainly in Jiangsu 江蘇 and Zhejiang 浙江 in China in 19th century, but why they began to spread rapidly from then on especially in southern Jiangsu has not been explained. In this study the author explains the origins of the shantang through the process of fiscal reform. From the 19th century Chinese fiscal affairs became rapidly difficult. Consequently, local governments became short of money and began to collect various illegal commission called lougui 陋規 through subordinate officials called xuli 胥吏, yayi 衙役 and dibao 地保. Collecting lougui was prohibited in Zhejiang in 1794, but in Jiangsu it continued and caused misery to the people until the fiscal reform of Ding-Ri-Chang 丁日昌 in 1868. There were various ways to collected lougui, and especially in southern Jiangsu subordinate officials often bullied people into handing over exorbitant fees when examining a person dying on the street. Then during the Jiaqing era Han-Shi-Sheng 韓是升, who lived in Xu-Shu-Zhen 滸墅鎮 in Suzhou 蘇州, established a shantang called Yi-Shan-Gong-Tang 一善公堂, which bore the expense of examination to prevent the officials from self-willed collection of lougui. This system was authorized by Ba-Ha-Bu 巴哈布 in 1812, and the establishment of shantang were promoted in other districts. They spread in Suzhou Songjiang 松江 and Taicang 太倉, and protected people from lougui until the fiscal reforms were carved out. On the other hand, they did not proliferate much in Zhejiang, where fiscal reformation had been carried at an earlier stage. Shantang were originally welfare-oriented but the purpose of this new type was to allay expenses for subordinate officials. They protected the middle classes threatened by these officials rather than the weaker social strata. The propertied people in those days founded shantang willingly, not to show mercy to the weak, but to provide for examining persons dying on the street.

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