Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/270

254 254 HARVARD LA W RE VIE W. writ of William Rufus, of uncertain date, directs the viscount to assemble the shire and take its judgment on a dispute as to lands, and to adjust the matter accordingly. A writ of execution in the same case indicates that it was decided by a jury, — sicut testi- moniata et jurata fuit. In the reign of Henry I., in 1122, the king directs that a con- troversy as to land be referred to the declaration of men of a certain neighborhood. Seven hundred were assembled, and the viscount of Dorset and Somerset presided. Sixteen men swore se veram affirmationem facturos de inquisitione terrae illius. . . quorum assertioni cuncti adquiescentes. . . sua jura conque- rentibus adjudicabant, &c. The names of those who swore are added. We see here again the hundred court giving the judg- ment upon the statement of those members who were chosen to swear. 1 (b) With the reign of Henry II. (1154-1189) we reach the period when all this irregular, unorganized use of the inquisition begins to take permanent shape at the hands of a great and saga- cious king. Through the text of certain of his ordinances (assises), and through the treatise ascribed to Glanville, the last of his chief justices, we shall soon get more definite instruction. A chronicler describes an early controversy in this reign, of the year n 58 (Big. PI. A. N. 198), between the men of Wallingford and Oxford, and the Abbot of Abingdon, as to the right to a market. The king, being in Normandy, had been persuaded to forbid the de- fendant to sell any but small articles until his return. The defendant asserted full rights of market. The king, on further complaint made to him in Normandy, directed the Earl of Leices- ter (Chief Justiciar from n 54 to 1162) to assemble the county of Berkshire and cause twenty-four of the older men to be chosen to answer on oath ; if they should swear that the defendant had full market in the time of Henry I. he should have it, otherwise not. This resulted in favor of the defendant. The plaintiffs then went to the king, who had returned, and complained that this oath was false, and that among those who swore had been some of the de- fendant's men. The king thereupon ordered an assembly of the Wallingford men and of the whole county of Berkshire at Oxford, before the justices, and that oath should be made to the truth by the 1 Palg. Com. ii. 183; Big. PI. A. N. 119.