Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/328

312 3 1 2 HAR VARD LA W RE VIE W. (g) There were other ways of informing the jury. Of guiding and restraining them I shall say more hereafter. The judge gave them their " charge," and" each party or his counsel explained to them his contention. In ©ur earliest reports a charge from the judge precedes the statements of counsel. In the first case in our extant Year Books (20 & 21 Edw. I. 3; A.D. 1292), there is a charge to the jury, but no report of any address on either side. In the same volume and year, in an assise of mortdancestor, the de- fendant is told by the judge to omit something from his oral pleading and piead only to the points of the assise : " What you say about your pledges (dites ceo en evidence de lasise), say it in evidence to the assise." In 1302, after the "great assise" was sworn, Berewyk, J. (Y. B. 30 & 31 Edw. I. 116-118), said to them : "John de Kilcayt heretofore brought a writ of right against William de Bodom and demanded eighteen perches, &C., 1 where- upon W. came and put himself on God and the great assise. We have (not) 2 the record, how they pleaded. You have nothing to say except only what you are charged with — as to the right." Then Mutford (counsel) speaks for John, setting forth that J.'s grandfather was seised of the land " as of fee and right," that it descended to his son John and from him "to this John who de- mands it as his son. And such is his right." Hunt then speaks for William : " This same John enfeoffed G. of the advowson of the church of C. with its appurtenances ; and this land is appur- tenant to the church of C. And this is William's right and the right of his church." The great assise then went out. 3 Of the same period (ib. 528), is a charge in a criminal case. One W., the stabler of J.'s horse, had been kicked while trying to mount 1 This " &c." appears to be explained by the words of the oath which are given : " Hear this, ye justices, that I will tell the truth and will not fail, who has the better right in eighteen perches of land and the third part of seven acres of land with the appurtenances in N., whether William Bodom, parson of the church of C, to hold in right of his church at C. as he holds, or J. Kilcayt to have as he demands, so help me God," etc. note; compare ib. xlix), says "we have;" the others, "we have not." The former reading seems the more probable. 8 The report closes thus: "The great assise went out. Then came back two knights and wished another knight. Berewyk [ J. ] to the marshal,— ' Don't allow any of them to come in unless all come together.' The great assise : ' Sir, we say that W. has better right to hold as he holds, than his adversary as he demands.' Brumpton [J.] . ' There- fore the court awards that W. retain the same land as his right and the right of his church of C. to the end of the world (a remenaunt de monde), quit of J. and his heirs forever; and that J. be in mercy.'"
 * One of three manuscripts used in preparing this volume, as we are told (p. 119,