It is perfectly evident that in all these courts the jurors were the judges, and determined all questions of law for themselves; because the only alternative to that supposition is, _that the jurors took their law from sheriffs, bailiffs, and stewards_, of which there is not the least evidence in history, nor the least probability in reason. It is evident, also, that they judged independently of the laws of the king, for the reasons before given, viz., that the authority of the king was held in very little esteem; and, secondly, that the laws of the king (not being printed, and the people being unable to read them if they had been printed) must have been in a great measure unknown to them, and could have been received by them only on the authority of the sheriff, bailiff, or steward. If laws were to be received by them on the authority of these officers, the latter would have imposed such laws upon the people as they pleased. These courts, that have now been described, were continued in full power long after Magna Carta, no alteration being made in them by that instrument, _nor in the mode of administering justice in them_. There is no evidence whatever, so far as I am aware, that the juries had any _less_ power in the courts held by the king's justices, than in those held by sheriffs, bailiffs, and stewards; and there is no probability whatever that they had. All the difference between the former courts and the latter undoubtedly was, that, in the former, the juries had the benefit of the advice and assistance of the justices, which would, of course, be considered valuable in difficult cases, on account of the justices being regarded as more learned, not only in the laws of the king, but also in the common law, or "law of the land." The conclusion, therefore, I think, inevitably must be, that neither the laws of the king, nor the instructions of his justices, had any authority over jurors beyond what the latter saw fit to accord to them. And this view is confirmed by this remark of Hallam, the truth of which all will acknowledge: "The rules of legal decision, among a rude people, are always very simple; not serving much to guide, far less to control the feelings of natural equity."--_2 Middle Ages_, ch. 8, part 2, p. 465.