The various steps in the procedure ought to be clearly grasped, (_a_) A claimant challenged the title of the actual tenant in the court baron of the lord, from whom the tenement was held, and offered battle by a champion, who was supposed to be a witness. (_b_) The tenant (now become a defendant) applied to the king for a royal writ, the issue of which, _ipso facto_, stopped all procedure in the court baron, (_c_) The claimant (plaintiff) had thus to make the next move; and Henry’s ordinance left only one move which he could make, namely to apply for a new royal writ, but one of a different kind. This new writ referred the question of title to twelve knights of the Grand Assize. (_d_) Before these could be appointed and give their verdict, many formalities and delays necessarily intervened, involving expensive journeys to the king’s _Curia_, first by the four appointing knights and afterwards by the twelve appointed. Months and even years might elapse before the final verdict was obtained. This ingenious reform, while superseding trial by battle, incidentally superseded also the jurisdiction of mesne lords. Hence the Grand Assize never became popular with the magnates. Cf. under c. 34. ----- Valuable as was this innovation, it had one obvious defect. The option it conferred might sometimes be usurped by the wrong man. It was intended to operate in the interests of order and justice by favouring the peaceable holder _de facto_; but what if a turbulent and lawless claimant, scorning an appeal to legal process, took the law into his own hands, evicted the previous holder by the rude method of self-help, and thereafter claimed the protection of Henry’s ordinance? In such a case the man of violence—the holder _mala fide_—would enjoy the option intended for his innocent victim. (2) _The petty assizes_ may, perhaps, be regarded as the outcome of Henry’s determination to prevent such misuse of his new engine of justice. If one claimant alleged that the other had usurped his rights by violence or fraud, the king allowed the preliminary plea thus raised to be summarily decided by the oath of twelve local landowners, according to a procedure known as a petty assize. These petty assizes, of which there were three kinds, all related to questions of “possession,” as opposed to questions of “ownership,” which could only be determined by battle or by the Grand Assize.