An eyre was only resorted to at long intervals—every seven years came to be the recognized term—and was intended as a severe method of punishing delinquencies and miscarriages of justice occurring since the last one, and of collecting arrears of royal dues. It was not a visit from these universally-hated Justices of Eyre that the barons in 1215 demanded four times a year. (_b_) _The Justices of Assize_ were also travelling judges, but in their original form at least, possessed hardly another feature in common with the Justices in Eyre. Their history extends from a period not earlier than the reign of Henry II. down to the present day.[553] They seem to have been popular from the first, as their primary function was to determine pending suits by a rational and acceptable form of procedure; while the scope of their jurisdiction, although gradually extended as their popularity increased, was at all times limited strictly by the express terms of their commissions. They were regarded not as royal tax-gatherers armed with harsh powers of coercion, but as welcome bearers of justice to the doors of those who needed it. ----- Footnote 553: Blackstone, _Commentaries_, III. 58, assigns 1176, (the assize of Northampton) as the date of their institution. ----- At first their duties were confined to one species of judicial work, namely, to presiding at enquiries of the kind specially mentioned in the text. These particular inquests were known as “assizes,” and the new species of travelling judges were hence called “Justices of Assize,” a name which has clung to them for centuries, although their jurisdiction has been gradually increased till it now includes both civil and criminal pleas of every description, and although meanwhile the invention of new forms of process has superseded the old “assizes,” and at last necessitated their total abolition.[554] They are still “justices of assize” in an age which knows nothing of assizes. ----- Footnote 554: See Statute 3 and 4 William IV. c. 27 §§ 36-7. The last actual case of a Grand Assize occurred in _Davies_ v. _Loundes_, in 1835 and 1838 (1 Bing. N. C. 597, and 5 Bing. N. C. 161). ----- II. _The Nature and Origin of the three Petty Assizes._ The institution of the "assizes"—particular forms of the sworn inquest—occupied a prominent place among the expedients by which Henry II. hoped to substitute a more rational procedure for the form of proof known as trial by combat.[555] ----- Footnote 555: