[12] Excepting also matters pertaining to the collection of the revenue, which were determined in the king's court of exchequer. But even in this court it was the law "that none be amerced but by his peers." Mirror of Justices, 49.
[13] "For the English laws, although not written, may, as it should seem, and that without any absurdity, be termed laws, (since this itself is law that which pleases the prince has the force of law,) I mean those laws which it is evident were promuulgated by the advice of the nobles and the authority of the prince, concerning doubts to be settled in their assembly. For if from the mere want of writing only, they should not be considered laws, then, unquestionably, writing would seem to confer more authority upon laws themselves, than either the equity of the persons constituting, or the reason of those framing them." Glanville's Preface, p. 38. (Glanville was chief justice of Henry II., 1180.) 2 Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, 280.
[14] Mackintosh's History of England, ch. 3. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia, 286.
[15] If the laws of the king were received as authoritative by the juries, what occasion was there for his appointing special commissioners for the trial of offences, without the intervention of a jury, as he frequently did, in manifest and acknowledged violation of Magna Carta, and "the law of the land?" These appointments were undoubtedly made for no other reason than that the juries were not sufficiently subservient, but judged according to their own notions of right, instead of the will of the king whether the latter were expressed in his statutes, or by his judges.
[16] Of course, Mr. Reeve means to be understood that, in the hundred court, and court-leet, the jurors were the judges, as he declares them to have been in the county court; otherwise the "bailiff" or "steward" must have been judge.
[17] The jurors were sometimes called " assessors," because they assessed, or determined the amount of fines and amercements to be imposed.
[18] "The barons of the Hundred" were the freeholders. Hallam says: "The word baro, originally meaning only a man, was of very large significance, and is not unfrequently applied to common freeholders, as in the phrase court-baron." 3 Middle Ages, 14-15.
Blackstone says: "The court-baron * * is a court of common law, and it is the court of the barons, by which name the freeholders were sometimes anciently called; for that it is held before the freeholders who owe suit and service to the manor." 3 Blackstone, 33.
[19] The ancient jury courts kept no records, because those who composed the courts could neither make nor read records. Their decisions were preserved by the memories of the jurors and other persons present.
[20] Stuart says: