Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/311

295 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. VOL. V. FEBRUARY 15, 1892. No. 7. THE JURY AND ITS DEVELOPMENT. II. i. In early times the inquisition had no fixed number. In the Frankish empire we are told of 66, 41, 20, 17, 13, II, 8, 7, 53, 15, and a great variety of other numbers (Brunner Schw. 1 11- 112). So also among the Normans it varied much, and " twelve has not even the place of the prevailing grundzahl ; " the docu- ments show all sorts of numbers — 4, 5, 6, 12, 13-18, 21, 27, 30, and so on (ib. 273-4). It seems to have been the recognitions under Henry II. that established twelve as the usual number (ib. 363) ; even then the number was not uniform. In the " inquest of office," it always continued to be uncertain. "This, [holding an inquisition] is done," says Blackstone, 1 "by a jury of no determinate number; being either twelve, or less or more." In 1 199 (Rot. Cur. Reg. ii. 114) there is a jury of nine. In Bracton's Note Book, at dates between 12 17 and 12 19, we see juries of 9, 36, and 40, — partly owing, indeed, to the consent of litigants. We have already noticed that the grand assise was six- teen, made by adding the four electors to the elected twelve, and that recognitions as to whether one be of age were by eight. The attaint jury was usually twenty-four; but in the reign of Henry VI. a judge remarked that the number is discretionary with the court. 2 1 Com. iii. 258, cited by Brunner. note, Co. Lit. 155.
 * For other cases in England and Normandy, see Brunner, Schw. 364, and Hargravi's