Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/167

 5. JENKS: EDWARD I 153 It could not be achieved by a single clause in the Statute of Westminster the Second. To the same year (1285), but to the autumn Parliament, belongs the credit of another great statute. The Statute of Westminster had been mainly concerned with the conduct of the ruling classes — the landowners and the royal officials. The Statute of W inchester is almost wholly occupied with the humbler ranks oT the community. It is much shorter, far simpler, but even more comprehensive than its predecessor, and its purpose is clear as the day. It insists that every man, rich and poor alike, has active duties of citizenship to per- form ; that the good citizen is not merely to abstain from disorder and crime, sitting by with folded hands whilst others defy the law, but that he is bound to assist the forces of order and good government. Three simple but comprehensive duties are imposed upon every citizen by the Statute. He is to report every felon whose offence he may witness or hear of,^ and take an active part in pursuit of him. He must person- ally assist in maintaining the police of the country, by serving ^ in the Watch,^ and by helping to clear the highways from the ^ growth of underwood which affords such a convenient refuge for thieves and murderers. ' He must, at least so long as his ^ years permit, provide and maintain himself with arms regu- ilP lated according to his means, and, twice a year, present himself at the View of Armour held in his Hundred, that the King may know the condition of his militia forces. The Statute of Winchester is deeply interesting; it contains just that surviving fragment of the old Saxon system of local autonomy which was adopted by the strong central govern- ment of the Plantagenet Kings. It is silent, of course, as to the strictly popular elements in the old system ; and it is probable that these disappeared rapidly before the increasing vigour of the central government. The two Constables of the Hundred mark the beginning of a new era in the history of Michaehnas. The writer has never been able to understand why the winter nights were left unguarded. Was it because in the winter there was little to steal, or because thieves were too lazy to turn out, or because the health of the Watch would have been injured by the cold weather?
 * The Watch is to be kept every night from Ascension Day to