Page:Source Problems in English History.djvu/61

 Origin of the Jury

I. THE HISTORICAL SETTING OF THE PROBLEM

IT has been remarked more than once that the narrow strip of water which separates England from the Continent, while it has been a safeguard against sudden invasion, has been no barrier to institutions and ideas. Even before the Norman Conquest much that was Frankish and ultimately Roman passed into England. Besides Christianity and the host of conceptions, social and political as well as religious, which it bore, there were such well-known importations as the ideas of written, central-made law, of a king who was more than a war chief, of centralized government in general. But of specific political practices or devices the importations had been very few. These came with the Norman Conquest, and prominent among them — prominent at the time, but absolutely pre-eminent if what was to grow out of it be taken into consideration — was the sworn inquest.

Although Normandy was a new state, founded in 911 by the Scandinavian conquerors of the region, it had by 1066, as one of the family of north French feudal principalities, become as Frankish as any and a distinct leader among them. Even its third duke, Richard the Fearless (943-996), has become known as the last of the Scandinavian and the first of the French dukes of Normandy. Intermarriage was wiping out race antagonism