At least twice a year the townsmen appeared before the sheriff,[90] at whose court criminal or "crown" pleas received a hearing, and who, in his military capacity, overlooked the muster-at-arms of the townsmen, and fixed what number of archers were to be levied for the King's service. The proceeds, of this court, goods of felons and the like, went to swell the royal treasury. The system of presenting criminals by means of a jury[91] obtained here as in the town court, but in doubtful or serious cases the accused would be condemned or acquitted not in accordance with evidence, but through an appeal to the interposition of Providence by means of trial by ordeal or battle. Thus, a man who was thrown into the water was, if he sank, pronounced innocent, if he swam, guilty; or the one of two champions, who overcame the other in fight, was held to have proved his case. But these irrational methods of trial were falling rapidly into disfavour. The "ordeal" was forbidden at the Lateran Council of 1216, and the Saxons, who much disliked the Norman method of trial by battle, always sought in their local charters to win exemption from the necessity of having recourse to it. Step by step the modern jury system was introduced, which, whatever may be its faults, is the most workable method hitherto discovered of obtaining a more or less unbiassed verdict in any suit. [Illustration: OLD WHITEFRIARS' MONASTERY, NOW COVENTRY UNION] Another provision of the charter, as confirmed by Henry II., was possibly an expedient to remedy the disasters which had lately befallen the townsmen under Gernons and Hugh. It was necessary, if the town was to grow and prosper, to attract settlers from different parts, and to those seeking a home in Coventry the clause that "newcomers should be free from all [payments] for two years after they began to build" would be most welcome.[92] From this time no doubt the advent of passing or abiding strangers was not infrequent, and the place began to put on the appearance of a thriving little thoroughfare town. The grant of a fair to the Earl's-men in 1217, and one to the prior some ten years later, brought stranger merchants within the town-gates.[93] The place was important enough to attract the Greyfriars thither before 1234, and the spire of their church still recalls their presence. More than a hundred years later came the Whitefriars or Carmelites, whose magnificent cloister is now incorporated in the workhouse. A colony of Jews also found shelter in Coventry before the days of Edward I.[94] We know no more than the names, and now and then the occupations of the men of the place in the thirteenth century; for our inquiries among the land-transfers of the time can elicit nothing save the records of the sale of a tenement and curtilage by a William de Artungworth, "le drapier," or their purchase by Richard le Tailleur, hosier, or Richard de Mora, merchant. But even this bare enumeration of trades and