Of these officials the worst offender was the "vicecomes," the successor to the shire-reeve (_i.e._ sheriff), who under the Anglo-Saxon régime had controlled the police administration of the county.[21] The Vicecomes went on circuit each Michaelmas, to hold an ambulatory police court, called the Court of the Tourn, to deal with petty offences in the provinces, to bring capital crimes to the cognisance of the superior courts, and to make an annual revision of the frankpledge, _i.e._ an inspection of the police societies, with the object of ensuring that all the tythings were full. The visit of the Norman sheriff generally resolved itself into a demand for the payment of heavy fines, that might, or might not, be legally due, and which too often were heavier than the people could bear, for whereas the English shilling had been worth about fivepence, the Norman shilling was equivalent to twelve pence, and yet amercements were still calculated on the old scale without any allowance being made for the change in the value of the coin. Even in the rare cases where extortion was not practised the local character of the police administration, which had always been one of its most prominent features, was to a certain extent destroyed by the interference of the alien Tourn. The object of the Vicecomes being to collect as many fines as possible, and to return to the king with some substantial evidence of his zeal, he was not over particular as to details, but fined a whole township or borough, and left the community to settle the incidence of the burden amongst the individuals composing it. A representative and well-known example of the harsh control that then obtained, may be instanced; an enactment of William the Conqueror ordained that any hundred within whose boundaries a Norman was found murdered, should pay forty-six marks[22] unless the murderer was delivered up within five days; and the sheriffs threw the burden of proof of the victim's nationality on the hundred; in other words, the corpse was assumed to be Norman and had to be paid as such, unless the contrary was proved to their satisfaction; it is almost unnecessary to add that in nine cases out of ten, acceptable proof could not be produced in the specified period of time.