Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/527

 NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN ENGLAND 477 the common-law system was the inquisitio, or sworn inquest of the neighborhood. This process, which seems to have come down from late Roman times through The sworn the Frankish Empire, we have seen developed by inc J uest the Church in the thirteenth century into the hated inquisi- tion. In England it was the 'seed from which has grown modern trial by jury and perhaps also the House of Com- mons. William the Conqueror had employed this institu- tion in collecting the necessary information for his Domes- day Book, and some further use of it for administrative or even judicial purposes had been made by the other kings before Henry II. But it was he who first made systematic and steady use of it. He had inquests made about this, that, and everything — an inquest of sheriffs, inquiries as to the keepers of castles, inquiry into feudal aids for marrying his daughter, inquiry as to the state of repair of buildings on the royal demesne. Henry introduced the sworn inquest in both civil and criminal cases. He decreed that certain suits concerning the ownership or possession of land should be settled Trial by in his courts by the sworn testimony of twelve J ury knights or freeholders of the neighborhood. By 1300 this method had become "part of the normal procedure in almost every kind of civil action." At first those men were selected who were most likely to know the facts of the case, and they were put upon their oath to tell what they knew. Their evidence, however, was also in the nature of a verdict that settled the suit. Moreover, they were allowed to consult documentary evidence and to take the testimony of others, until gradually a distinction grew up between the witnesses and the jurors as in modern trials. Our grand jury, which determines whether there is suffi- cient evidence to warrant putting a person on trial for the crime in question, seems to have grown out of another ^.^ sworn inquest of Henry's time, in which twelve knights or f^{ freemen of each hundred were to take oath to tell the royal judges whom they suspected of having committed the recent robberies and murders in their localities. Such suspected