Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/254

 246 LAW MERCHANT IN LONDON IN 1292 April choice would seem not to have been left entirely to the parties ; * and it is perhaps necessary that the doctrine that no man was compelled to put himself upon a jury should not be regarded as applying without reserve to cases under the law merchant. But the point did not arise in this case, probably because a man who could not find sufficient sureties could not find six sufficient compurgators. 2 A London jury consisting entirely of merchants presents a marked contrast to St. Ives, where a jury was commonly drawn from merchants and neighbours, 3 and we may deduce from the Bristol ' Lex Mercatoria ' that the latter was the general practice throughout the country. The suitors in the market or fair court did not consist of merchants only, but of all those as well holding land or residing within the bounds of the city, fair, or town where the court was held, 4 and even neighbours who owed no suit to the court might apparently be required to serve on a jury. 5 With a much larger mercantile community it was possible for London to develop a more specialized form of tribunal ; and at a later period this tendency apparently pro- ceeded so far as to exclude from the mayor's court, for the purpose of mercantile cases, those aldermen who did not possess knowledge of the law merchant. 6 We may ask how it came about that the warden's court exercised jurisdiction in a case where the plaintiff was a German and the defendant not free of the city, while the dispute concerned a bargain made far away at Lynn. But it was a feature of the law merchant that a case might be brought into court concerning a contract that had been made in another place. 7 The fair court of St. Ives clearly exercised jurisdiction in cases concerning transactions in which every act from bargain to the payment of the final instalment of the purchase money took place else- where, the parties having no other connexion with St. Ives than their temporary presence at the fair ; 8 and even where one of the parties was resident in St. Ives it was not, we may 1 Select Pleas in Manorial Courts, p. 154 ; Select Cases on the Law Merchant, pp. 50, 51, 52. 2 Below, p. 248 ; Mun. Gildh. Land. i. 203. 3 Select Pleas in Manorial Courts, pp. 143, 144; Select Cases on the Law Merchant, pp. 29, 30, 33. rank of knight. Cf. Mun. Gildh. Lond. ii. 207-8. 5 Little Bed Book, pp. 70, 71 : 'Setoportunum est quod rei veritas. . . iuquiratur per probos et legales homines, mercatores et sectatores eiusdem Curie et alios eidem Curie viciniores.' 6 Liber Dunthorn, fo. 68 ; above, p. 244, n. 3. By 1436 the mayor and aldermen sitting to determine cases according to law merchant have become ' Curia mercatoria tenta hie in interiori camera Guyhalde ' : Chanc. Misc. 68/13, no. 395. 7 Little Bed Book, pp. 70, 80.
 * Little Bed Boole, p. 71. Exceptions were clerks and those of and above the
 * Select Cases on the Law Merchant, pp. 62, 65.