By means of this series of conciliar courts the unity of the Church is secured and made manifest; the combined, simultaneous effort of the whole is made possible; and disputes, instead of being fought out where they arise, are carried for settle ment to a larger and higher judicatory, free from local feeling and prejudice.
The sentence of one judicatory is to be respected by other judicatories of equal rank; re-trial may take place only before that authority to whom appeal regularly lies (see canons 3, 4, 6).
Hence, though the village of Canongate grew up beside the abbey of David I., and Edinburgh was a place of sufficient importance to be reckoned one of the four principal burghs as a judicatory for all commercial matters, nevertheless, even so late as 1450, when it became for the first time a walled town, it did not extend beyond the upper part of the ridge which slopes eastwards from the castle.
As a judicatory it is the final court of appeal; and by it alone can the graver censures of church discipline be reviewed and removed.