Also, "The same form of procedure, which took place in the administration of justice among the vassals of a barony, was gradually extended to the courts eld in the trading towns." Same, p. 335.
Also, "The same regulation, concerning the distribution of justice by the intervention of juries, . . .were introduced into the baron courts of the king, as into those of the nobility, or such of his subjects as retained their allodial property." Same, p. 337.
Also, "This tribunal" (the aula regis, or king's court, afterwards divided into the courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer) "was properly the ordinary baron-court of the king; and, being in the same circumstances with the baron courts of the nobility, it was under the same necessity of trying causes by the intervention of a jury." Same, vol. 2, p. 292.
Speaking of the times of Edward the First, (1272 to 1307,) Millar says:
"What is called the petty jury was therefore introduced into these tribunals, (the King's Bench, the Common Pleas, and the Exhequer,) as well as into their anxiliary courts employed to distribute justice in the circuits; and was thus rendered essentially necessary in determining causes of every sort, whether civil, criminal, or fiscal." Same, vol. 2, p. 293-4.
Also, "That this form of trial (by jury) obtained universally in all the feudal governments, as well as in that of Eng-1and, there can be no reason to doubt. In France, in Germany, and in other European countries, where we have any accounts of the constitution and procedure of the feudal courts, it appears that lawsuits of every sort concerning the freemen or vassals of a barony, were determined by the pares curiae (peers of the court;) and that the judge took little more upon him than to regulate the method of proceeding, or to declare the verdict of the jury." Same, vol. 1, ch. 12, p. 329.
Also, "Among the Gothic nations of modern Europe, the custom of deciding lawsuits by a jury seems to have prevailed universally; first in the allodial courts of the county, or of the hundred, and afterwards in the baron-courts of every feudal superior." Same, vol. 2, p. 296.
Palgrave says that in Germany "The Graff (gerefa, sheriff) placed himself in the seat of judgment, and gave the charge to the assembled free Echevins, warning them to pronounce judgment according to right and justice." 2 Palgrave, 147.
Also, that, in Germany, "The Echevins were composed of the villanage, somewhat obscured in their functions by the learning of the grave civilian who was associated to them, and somewhat limited by the encroachments of modern feudality; but they were still substantially the judges of the court." Same, 148.
Palgrave also says, "Scotland, in like manner, had the laws of Burlaw, or Birlaw, which were made and determined by the neighbors, elected by common consent, in the Burlaw or Birlaw courts, wherein knowledge was taken of complaints between neighbor and neighbor, which men, so chosen, were judges and arbitrators, and called Birlaw men." 1 Palgrave's Rise, &c;., p. 80.