"No cause of consequence was determined without the king's writ; for even in the county courts, of the debts, which were above forty shillings, there issued a Justicies (commission) to the sheriff, to enable him to hold such plea, where the suitors are judges of the law and fact." Gilbert's History of the Common Pleas, Introduction, p. 19.
"This position" (that " the matter of law was decided by the King's Justices, but the matter of fact by the pares ") "is wholly incompatible with the common law, for the Jurata ( jury) were the sole judges both of the law and the fact." Gilbert's History of the Common Pleas, p. 70, note.
"We come now to the challenge: and of old the suitors in court, who were judge, could not he challenged; nor by the feudal law could the pares be even challenged. Pares qui ordinariam jurisdictionem habent recusari non possunt; (the peers who have ordinary jurisdiction cannot be rejected;) "but those suitors who are judges of the court, could not be challenged; and the reason is, that there are several qualifications required by the writ, viz., that they be liberos et legales homines de vincineto (free and legal men of the neighborhood) of the place laid in the declaration," &c;., &c;. Ditto, p.93.
"Ad questionem juris non respondent Juratores." (To the question of law the jurors do not answer.) "The Annotist says, that this is indeed a maxim in the Civil-Law Jurisprudence, but it does not bind an English jury, for by the common law of theland the jury are the judges as well of the matter of law, as of the fact, with this difference only, that the "The administration of justice was carefully provided for; it was not the caprice of their lord, but the sentence of their peers, that they obeyed. Each was the judge of his equals, and each by his equals was judged." Introd. to Gilbert on Tenures, p. 12. Hallam says: "A respectable class of free socagers, having, in general, full rights of alienating their lands, and holding them probably at a small certain rent from the lord of the manor, frequently occur in Domes-day Book. * * They undoubtedly were suitors to the court-baron of the lord, to whose soc, or right of justice, they belonged. They where consequently judges in civil causes, determined before the manorial tribunal." 2 Middle Ages, 481. Stephens adopts as correct the following quotations from Blackstone: "The Court-Baron is a court incident to every manor in the kingdom, to be holden by the steward within the said manor." * * It "is a court of common law, and it is the court before the freeholders who owe suit and service to the manor," (are bound to serve as jurors in the courts of the manor,) "the steward being rather the registrar than the judge. * * The freeholders' court was composed of the lord's tenants, who were the pares(equals) of each other, and were bound by their feudal tenure to assist their lord in the dispensation of domestic justice. This was formerly held every three weeks; and its most important business was to etermine, by writ of right, all controversies relating to the right of lands within the manor." 3 Stephens' Commentaries, 392 3. 3 Blackstone, 32-33. "A Hundred Court is only a larger court-baron, being held for all the inhabitants of a particular hundred, instead of a manor. The free suitors ( jurors) are here also the judges, and the steward the register." 3 Stephens, 394. 3 Blackstone, 33.