The trial by jury was a part of _legem terræ_, and we have the means of knowing what the trial by jury was. The fact that the jury were to fix the sentence, implies that they were to _try_ the accused; otherwise they could not know what sentence, or whether any sentence, ought to be inflicted upon him. Hence it follows that the jury were to judge of everything involved in the trial; that is, they were to judge of the nature of the offence, of the admissibility and weight of testimony, and of everything else whatsoever that was of the essence of the trial. If anything whatever could be dictated to them, either of law or evidence, the sentence would not be theirs, but would be dictated to them by the power that dictated to them the law or evidence. The trial and sentence, then, were wholly in the hands of the jury. We also have sufficient evidence of the nature of the oath administered to jurors in criminal cases. It was simply, that _they would neither convict the innocent, nor acquit the guilty_. This was the oath in the Saxon times, and probably continued to be until Magna Carta. We also know that, in case of _conviction_, the sentence of the jury was not necessarily final; that the accused had the right of appeal to the king and his judges, and to demand either a new trial, or an acquittal, if the trial or conviction had been against law. So much, therefore, of the _legem terræ_ of Magna Carta, we know with reasonable certainty. We also know that Magna Carta provides that "No bailiff (_balivus_) shall hereafter put any man to his law, (put him on trial,) on his single testimony, without credible witnesses brought to support it." Coke thinks "that under this word _balivus_, in this act, is comprehended every justice, minister of the king, steward of the king, steward and bailiff." (2 Inst. 44.) And in support of this idea he quotes from a very ancient law book, called the Mirror of Justices, written in the time of Edward I., within a century after Magna Carta. But whether this were really a common law principle, or whether the provision grew out of that jealousy of the government which, at the time of Magna Carta, had reached its height, cannot perhaps now be determined. We also know that, by Magna Carta, amercements, or fines, could not be imposed to the ruin of the criminal; that, in the case of a freeman, his _contenement_, or means of subsisting in the condition of a freeman, must be saved to him; that, in the case of a merchant, his merchandise must be spared; and in the case of a villein, his _waynage_, or plough-tackle and carts. This also is likely to have been a principle of the common law, inasmuch as, in that rude age, when the means of getting employment as laborers were not what they are now, the man and his family would probably have been liable to starvation, if these means of subsistence had been taken from him.