six circuits of three justices did the work under a revised form of the Assize of Clarendon, issued at Northampton; and the year 1179, when Henry reformed the central as well as the provincial tribunals. [Sidenote: Training of the people in self-government. ] Of the effects of this system one, the abatement of the power of the feudal courts of justice by forcing them under royal jurisdiction, has been noticed already. A second was the training of the people generally, through the use of juries which were employed both for legal and fiscal business; they thus learned to manage their own affairs and to keep up an intelligent interest in legislation and political business. A third was, to limit the power of the sheriffs, who being the sole royal representatives in the shires, judicial, military, and fiscal, had great chances of exercising irresponsible tyranny, of which the books of the time contain many complaints. Besides the visitations of the judges Henry from time to time used still stronger measures of remedy or precaution against the oppressions of the sheriffs. In 1170 he turned them all out of office, and held a very strict inquiry into the amount of money they had received, filling up their places with servants and officers of his own court, by whose action the local government would be placed in more direct relation to the central. [Sidenote: Central judicature. ] Nor were these labors solely directed to the reform of provincial jurisdiction. Henry II. reformed also the supreme court of justice, which was supposed to emanate from his own person and household, and established a distinct staff of well-instructed lawyers to hear the suits that were sent up for his royal decision. These men he found it hard work to manage, and once in 1178 he swept them all away as summarily as he had done the sheriffs in 1170. Sometimes he employed clerks, sometimes knights, sometimes prelates, in the office of judge, with unequal success, but with a never-faltering purpose of securing easy justice. [Sidenote: Variety in taxation. ] In the same way he varied the taxes, from year to year, not allowing the same interest to be oppressed with continual imposts, but taking now a tallage from the towns, now a scutage or an aid from the land-owners or knightly body; and on the occasion of the Crusade, in 1184 and 1188, calling for a contribution from personal property, a fixed proportion or a tithe of goods for the war against Saladin. [Sidenote: Military system. ]