Also. "This tribunal" (the _aula regis_, or king's court, afterwards
divided into the courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer)
"was properly the ordinary baron-court of the king; and, being in the
same circumstances with the baron-courts of the nobility, it was under
the same necessity of trying causes by the intervention of a
jury."--_Same_, vol. 2, p. 292.
Speaking of the times of Edward the First, (1272 to 1307,) Millar says:
"What is called the petty jury was therefore introduced into these
tribunals, (the King's Bench, the Common Pleas, and the _Exchequer_,) as
well as into their auxiliary courts employed to distribute justice in
the circuits; and was thus rendered essentially necessary in determining
causes of every sort, whether civil, criminal, or _fiscal_."--_Same_,
vol. 2, p. 293-4.
Also, "That this form of trial (by jury) obtained universally in all the
feudal governments, as well as in that of England, there can be no
reason to doubt. In France, in Germany, and in other European countries,
where we have any accounts of the constitution and procedure of the
feudal courts, it appears that lawsuits of every sort concerning the
freemen or vassals of a barony, were determined by the _pares curiæ_
(peers of the court;) _and that the judge took little more upon him than
to regulate the method of proceeding, or to declare the verdict of the
jury_."--_Same_, vol. 1, ch. 12, p. 329.
Also, "Among the Gothic nations of modern Europe, the custom of deciding
lawsuits by a jury seems to have prevailed universally; first in the
allodial courts of the county, or of the hundred, and afterwards in the
baron-courts of every feudal superior."--_Same_, vol. 2, p. 296.
Palgrave says that in Germany "The Graff (gerefa, sheriff) placed
himself in the seat of judgment, and gave the charge to the assembled
free Echevins, warning them to pronounce judgment according to right and
justice."--2 _Palgrave_, 147.
Also, that, in Germany, "The Echevins were composed of the villanage,
somewhat obscured in their functions by the learning of the grave
civilian who was associated to them, and somewhat limited by the
encroachments of modern feudality; _but they were still substantially
the judges of the court_."--_Same_, 148.
Palgrave also says, "Scotland, in like manner, had the laws of Burlaw,
or Birlaw, which were made and determined by the neighbors, elected by
common consent, in the Burlaw or Birlaw courts, wherein knowledge was
taken of complaints between neighbor and neighbor, _which men, so
chosen, were judges and arbitrators_, and called Birlaw men."--1
_Palgrave's Rise_, &c., p. 80.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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