before the Exchequer;[860] and two others defined the justices’ authority, as extending, in judicial matters, over all pleas of the Crown, both in criminal causes and in civil actions concerning half a knight’s fee or less; and in fiscal matters, over escheats, wardships, and lands and churches in royal demesne.[861] [852] On January 26. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 404. Cf. _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 107, and Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 87. The _Gesta_ date it merely “circa festum Conversionis S. Pauli”; Roger turns this into “in festo,” etc., and adopts the reading “Nottingham” instead of “Northampton.” Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 257, 258, confounds the Assize of Clarendon with the Constitutions. [853] Cf. articles 1–3, 12 of Ass. Northampton (Stubbs, _Select Charters_, pp. 150, 151, 152), with Ass. Clarendon, cc. 1–4, 13, 15, 16 (_ib._ pp. 143, 144, 145). The Assize of Northampton is given in the _Gesta Hen._ as above, pp. 108–110, and by Rog. Howden as above, pp. 89–91. [854] Ass. North., c. 1 (Stubbs, as above, p. 151). [855] _Ib._ c. 4 (pp. 151, 152). [856] Ass. North., c. 6 (Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 152). [857] _Ib._ c. 8 (as above). [858] _Ib._ c. 11 (_ibid._) [859] _Ib._ c. 13 (pp. 152, 153). [860] _Ib._ c. 10 (p. 152). [861] _Ib._ cc. 7 and 9 (_ibid._). The visitations of the justices by whom this assize was carried into effect were arranged upon a new plan, or rather upon a modified form of the plan which had been adopted two years before for the assessment of a tallage upon the royal demesnes, to meet the cost of the expected war. It was at that terrible crisis, when most men in Henry’s place would have had no thought to spare for anything save the military necessities and perils of the moment, that he had first devised and carried into effect the principle of judicial circuits which with some slight changes in detail has remained in force until our own day. This tallage was levied by nineteen barons of the Exchequer, distributed into six companies, each company undertaking the assessment throughout a certain district or group of shires.[862] The abandonment of this scheme in the assizes of the two following years was probably necessitated by the disturbed state of the country. But at the council of Northampton the kingdom was again definitely mapped out into six divisions, to each of which three justices were sent.[863] In the report of their proceedings in the Pipe Roll of the year they are for the first time since the Assize of Clarendon[864] officially described by the title which they had long borne in common speech, “_justitiæ itinerantes_” (or “_errantes_”), justices-in-eyre; and it is from this time that the regular institution of itinerant judges is dated by modern legal historians.[865]