Judging, therefore, from the special provisions in Magna Carta, requiring fines, or amercements, to be imposed only by juries, (without mentioning any other punishments;) judging, also, from the statutes which immediately followed Magna Carta, it is probable that, the Saxon custom of punishing all, or nearly all, offences by fines, (with the alternative to the criminal of being imprisoned, banished, or outlawed, and exposed to private vengeance, in case of non-payment,) continued until the time of Magna Carta; and that in providing expressly that fines should be fixed by the juries, Magna Carta provided for nearly or quite all the punishments that were expected to be inflicted; that if there were to be any others, they were to be fixed by the juries; and consequently that nothing was left to be fixed by "legem terrae." But whether the common law fixed the punishment of any offences, or not, is a matter of little or no practical importance at this day; because we have no idea of going back to any common law punishments of six hundred years ago, if, indeed, there were any such at that time. It is enough for us to know and this is what is material for us know that the jury fixed the punishments, in all cases, unless they were fixed by the common law; that Magna Carta allowed no punishments to be prescribed by statute that is, by the legislative power nor in any other manner by the king, or his judges, in any case whatever; and, consequently, that all statutes prescribing particular punishmnts for particular offences, or giving the king's judges any authority to fix punishments, were void. If the power to fix punishments had been left in the hands of the king, it would have given him a power of oppression, which was liable to be greatly abused; which there was no occasion to leave with him; and which would have been incongruous with the whole object of this chapter of Magna Carta; which object was to take all discretionary or arbitrary power over individuals entirely out of the hands of the king, and his laws, and entrust it only to the common law, and the peers, or jury that is, the people. What lex terrae did authorize. But here the question arises, What then did legem terrae" authorize the king, (that is, the government,) to do in the case of an accused person, if it neither authorized any other trial than that by jury, nor any other punishments than those fixed by juries? The answer is, that, owing to the darkness of history on the point, it is probably wholly impossible, at this day, to state, with any certainty or precision, anything whatever that the legem terrae of Magna Carta did authorize the king, (that is, the government,) to do, (if, indeed, it authorized him to do anything,) in the case of criminals, other than to have them, tried and sentenced by their peers, for common law crimes; and to carry that sentence into execution.