As yet, however, there was no token of the strife to come. In February 1166, two years after the publication of the Constitutions of Clarendon, Henry assembled another council at the same place and thence issued an ordinance[584] for carrying out a reform in the method of bringing to justice criminals in general, similar to that which he had in the Constitutions sought to apply to criminals of one particular class. By the Assize of Clarendon it was enacted that the king’s justices and the sheriffs should in every shire throughout the kingdom make inquiry concerning all crimes therein committed “since our lord the king was king.”[585] The method of their investigations was that of inquest by sworn recognitors chosen from among the “lawful men” of each hundred and township, and bound by oath to speak the truth according to their knowledge of the fact in question. This mode of legal inquiry had been introduced into England by William the Conqueror for fiscal purposes, such as the taking of the Domesday survey, and its employment for similar objects was continued by his successors. Henry II. had in the early years of his reign applied the same principle to the uses of civil litigation by an ordinance known as the “Great Assize,” whereby disputes concerning the possession of land might, if the litigants chose, be settled before the justices of the king’s court by the unanimous oath of twelve lawful knights chosen according to a prescribed form from among those dwelling in the district where the land lay, and therefore competent to swear to the truth or falsehood of the claim.[586] This proceeding seems to be assumed as already in use by the ninth Constitution of Clarendon, which ordains its application to disputes concerning Church lands.[587] The Assize of Clarendon aimed at bringing criminals to justice by the help of the same machinery. It decreed that in every hundred of every shire inquest should be made by means of twelve lawful men of the hundred and four from each township, who should be sworn to denounce every man known in their district as a robber, thief or murderer, or a harbourer of such; on their presentment the accused persons were to be arrested by the sheriff, and kept by him in safe custody till they could be brought before the itinerant justices, to undergo the ordeal of water and receive legal punishment according to its results.[588] The inquest was to be taken and the session of the justices held in full shire-court; no personal privileges of any kind were to exempt any qualified member of the court from his duty of attendance and of service on the jury of recognitors if required;[589] and no territorial franchise or private jurisdiction, whether of chartered town or feudal “honour,” was to shelter a criminal thus accused from the pursuit of the sheriffs on the authority of the justices.[590]