[Footnote 46: "For the English laws, _although not written_, may, as it should seem, and that without any absurdity, be termed laws, (since this itself is law--that which pleases the prince has the force of law,) I mean those laws which it is evident were promulgated by the advice of the nobles and the authority of the prince, concerning doubts to be settled in their assembly. For if from the mere want of writing only, they should not be considered laws, then, unquestionably, writing would seem to confer more authority upon laws themselves, than either the equity of the persons constituting, or the reason of those framing them."--_Glanville's Preface_, p. 38. (Glanville was chief justice of Henry II., 1180.) _2 Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons_, 280.] [Footnote 47: Mackintosh's History of England, ch. 3. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia, 266.] [Footnote 48: If the laws of the king were received as authoritative by the juries, what occasion was there for his appointing special commissioners for the trial of offences, without the intervention of a jury, as he frequently did, in manifest and acknowledged violation of Magna Carta, and "the law of the land?" These appointments were undoubtedly made for no other reason than that the juries were not sufficiently subservient, but judged according to their own notions of right, instead of the will of the king--whether the latter were expressed in his statutes, or by his judges.] [Footnote 49: Of course, Mr. Reeve means to be understood that, in the hundred court, and court-leet, _the jurors were the judges_, as he declares them to have been in the county court; otherwise the "bailiff" or "steward" must have been judge.] [Footnote 50: The jurors were sometimes called "assessors," because they assessed, or determined the amount of fines and amercements to be imposed.] [Footnote 51: "The barons of the Hundred" were the freeholders. Hallam says: "The word _baro_, originally meaning only a man, was of very large significance, and is not unfrequently applied to common freeholders, as in the phrase _court-baron_."--_3 Middle Ages_, 14-15. _Blackstone_ says: "The _court-baron_ * * is a court of common law, and it is the court of the barons, by which name the freeholders were sometimes anciently called; for that it is held before the freeholders who owe suit and service to the manor."--_3 Blackstone_, 33.] [Footnote 52: The ancient jury courts kept no records, because those who composed the courts could neither make nor read records. Their decisions were preserved by the memories of the jurors and other persons present.] [Footnote 53: Stuart says: "The courts, or civil arrangements, which were modelled in Germany, preserved the independence of the people; and having followed the Saxons into England, and continuing their importance, they supported the envied liberty we boast of. * *