For the rest, since we might search the old Saxon laws in vain for any other certain traces of jurymen besides these, and as special care must be taken not to confound jurymen with cojurors, it becomes quite clear, first, that those authors who conclude, from the above often-quoted passages of Ethelred’s law, that the English jury is of Anglo-Saxon origin, are in error; and secondly, that their opponents have not taken a quite impartial view of the matter when they ascribe the introduction of the jury into England to the conquest by William of Normandy. For it must now be regarded as a point quite decided that THE EARLIEST POSITIVE TRACES OF A JURY IN ENGLAND APPEAR IN THE DANELAG, AMONG THE DANES ESTABLISHED THERE, and that, long before William the Conqueror’s time, they had brought over from their old home the Scandinavian _Nævn_, or jury, into the districts north-east of Watlinga-Stræt, colonized by them, just as their kinsmen and brothers introduced that powerful safeguard of popular freedom into Iceland and Normandy. It would, indeed, have been quite inexplicable that the Danes should have given up their peculiar Scandinavian _Nævn_ in a country like England, where the Danish law obtained by degrees so extensive a footing that, during the reign of the first Norman kings, it was still in force in one-half of the kingdom. The provisions in Ethelred’s law, so frequently cited, respecting the force of the majority of votes in the verdict of the jury, also betray a likeness, which can scarcely have been accidental, to the regulations of the _Nævn_, or jury, at that time observed in Denmark. According to the most ancient Danish laws, the outvoted jurymen were also to pay fines. For the rest, there is this peculiarity in the jury of the Danish part of England, that from the time of Ethelred it was no longer chosen by the complainant, as was originally the case in Denmark, but by the court, or by the sheriff of the district (“gerefa”); which was a considerable step gained towards security against partiality. The choice of jurymen was, besides, still more limited in England than in Denmark. Instead of landed proprietors in general, the twelve eldest Thanes alone were eligible; whence it followed that the jurymen were not only fixed, but also obtained, as a reward for their labour, a certain rank, with the rights and income attached to it. This more aristocratical form of the jury undoubtedly sprang from the circumstance that the Danes had entered the northern and eastern districts of England as lords and conquerors. They could not, consequently, appoint as jurors native Anglo-Saxons, unacquainted with the customs of the Danish law courts; nor would they, assuredly, have permitted a conquered people to take a part in verdicts affecting themselves and their Scandinavian brethern. The consequence was, that they chose from among themselves men of consideration, and acquainted with the law, to conduct the administration of justice.