If the framers of John’s Magna Carta had possessed any grasp of constitutional principles, they would gladly have seized the opportunity afforded them by the mention, however incidentally, of the Common Council, in chapters 12 and 14, in order to define most carefully the powers which they claimed for it. On the contrary, no list of its functions is drawn up; nor do the words of the Charter contain anything to suggest that it exercised any powers other than that of consenting to scutages and aids. Not a word is said of any right inherent in the Council to a share in legislation, to control or even to advise the Executive, or to concur in choosing the great ministers of the Crown. Neither deliberative, administrative, nor legislative powers are secured to it, while its control over taxation is strictly limited to the right to veto scutages and aids—that is say, it only extends over that very narrow class of exactions which affected the military tenants of the Crown. It is true that chapters 21 and 39 may possibly be read confirming the _judicial_ power of the Council in a certain limited group of cases. Earls and barons are not to be amerced except by their peers (_per pares suos_), and the natural place for these “equals” of a Crown vassal to assemble for this purpose would be the _Commune Concilium_. This, however, is merely matter of inference; chapter 21 makes no mention of the Council; and it is equally possible that its requirements would be met by the presence among the officials of the Exchequer of a few Crown tenants.[224] Similar reasoning applies to the provisions of chapter 39 (protecting the persons and property of freemen, by insisting on the necessity of a “trial by peers”) so far as they affect earls and barons. ----- Footnote 224: This is the view of Mr. L. O. Pike, _House of Lords_, 204. -----