inserted in colors by an illuminator who never came; and those who first studied these documents drew the hasty conclusion that they were issued by Henry as duke of Normandy before he became king. It was not, however, usual for the mediæval scribe to leave the rubricator entirely without guidance when he came to insert his initials, but to mark the proper letter lightly in the place itself or on the margin, and an attentive examination of the well-thumbed margins of the Bayeux _Black Book_ shows that this was no exception to the rule, and that in both the cases in question the initial G had been carefully indicated. G can, of course, stand only for Henry’s father Geoffrey, so that some general use of the assize as a method of trial in the ducal courts can be proved for his reign. As no such documents have reached us for his predecessors, it would be tempting to assume the influence of Angevin precedents; but this runs counter to what we know of the judicial institutions of Anjou in this period, as well as of the policy of Geoffrey in Normandy, which was to follow in all respects the system of Henry I. Although the first general use of the sworn inquest as a mode of trial thus antedates Henry II, it is still a Norman institution. * * * * * It would carry us too far to discuss the many problems connected with the use of the jury in Henry’s reign or to follow the many changes still needed to convert the sworn inquest into the modern jury. It is sufficient for our present purpose to mark its Norman character, first as being carried to England by the Normans in its older form, and then as being developed into its newer form on Norman soil. It should, however, be remembered that its later history belongs to England rather than to Normandy. With the rise of new forms of procedure in the thirteenth century, the jury on the Continent declines and finally disappears; “but for the conquest of England,” says Maitland, “it would have perished and long ago have become a matter for the antiquary.”[39] In England, however, it was early brought into relations with the local courts of the hundred and the county, where it struck root and developed into a popular method of trial which was later to become a defence against the king’s officers who had first introduced it. A bulwark of individual liberty, the jury also holds an important place in the establishment of representative government, for it was through representative juries that the voice of the countryside first asserted itself in the local courts, for the assessment of taxes as well as for the decision of cases, and it was in the negotiations of royal officers with the local juries that we can trace the beginnings of the House of Commons. It is no accident that the first employment of local juries for the assessment of military and fiscal obligations belongs to the later years of Henry II.