"The bishop and the earl, or, in his absence, the gerefa, (sheriff,) and sometimes both the earl and the gerefa, presided at the _schyre-mote_ (county court); the gerefa (sheriff) usually alone presided at the _mote_ (meeting or court) of the hundred. In the cities and towns which were not within any peculiar jurisdiction, there was held, at regular stated intervals, a _burgh mote_, (borough court,) for the administration of justice, at which a gerefa, or a magistrate appointed by the king, presided."--_Spence's Origin of the Laws and Political Institutions of Modern Europe_, p. 444. "The right of the plaintiff and defendant, and of the prosecutor and criminal, _to challenge the judices_, (judges,) _or assessors,[50] appointed to try the cause in civil matters, and to decide upon the guilt or innocence of the accused in criminal matters_, is recognized in the treatise called the Laws of Henry the First; but I cannot discover, from the Anglo-Saxon laws or histories, that before the Conquest the parties had any general right of challenge; _indeed, had such right existed, the injunctions to all persons standing in the situation of judges (jurors) to do right according to their conscience_, would scarcely have been so frequently and anxiously repeated."--_Spence_, 456. Hale says: "The administration of the common justice of the kingdom seems to be wholly dispensed in the county courts, hundred courts, and courts-baron; except some of the greater crimes reformed by the laws of King Henry I., and that part thereof which was sometimes taken up by the _Justitiarius Angliæ_." This doubtless bred great inconvenience, uncertainty, and variety in the laws, viz.: "_First, by the ignorance of the judges, which were the freeholders of the county._ * * "Thirdly, a third inconvenience was, that all the business of any moment was carried by parties and factions. _For the freeholders being generally the judges_, and conversing one among another, _and being as it were the chief judges, not only of the fact, but of the law_; every man that had a suit there, sped according as he could make parties."--_1 Hale's History of the Common Law_, p. 246. "In all these tribunals," (county court, hundred court, &c.,) "_the judges were the free tenants_, owing suit to the court, and afterwards called its peers."--_1 Lingard's History of England_, 488. Henry calls the twelve jurors "assessors," and says: "These assessors, _who were in reality judges_, took a solemn oath, that they would faithfully discharge the duties of their office, and not suffer an innocent man to be condemned, nor any guilty person to be acquitted."--_3 Henry's History of Great Britain_, 346. Tyrrell says: