2. Since Magna Carta, we have evidence showing quite conclusively that all freemen, above the age of twenty-one years, were eligible as jurors.
The Mirror of Justices, (written within a century after Magna Carta,) in the section " Of Judges" that is, jurors says:
"All those who are not forbidden by law may be judges (jurors).
To women it is forbidden by law that they be judges; and thence it is, that feme coverts are exempted to do suit in inferior courts. On the other part, a villein cannot be a judge, by reason of the two estates, which are repugnants; persons attainted of false judgments cannot be judges, nor infants, nor any under the age of twenty-one years, nor infected persons, nor idiots, nor madmen, nor deaf, nor dumb, nor parties in the pleas, nor men excommunicated by the bishop, nor criminal persons. * * And those who are not of the Christian faith cannot be judges, nor those who are out of the king's allegiance." Mirror of Justices, 59 60.
In the section " Of Inferior Courts," it is said:
"From the first assemblies came consistories, which we now call courts, and that in divers places, and in divers manners: whereof the sheriffs held one monthly, or every five weeks according to the greatness or largeness of the shires. And these courts are called county courts, where the judgment is by the suitors, if there be no writ, and is by warrant of jurisdiction ordinary. The other inferior courts are the courts of every lord of the fee, to the likeness of the hundred courts. There are other inferior courts which the bailiffs hold in every hundred, from three weeks to three weeks, by the suitors of the freeholders of the hundred. All the tenants within the fees are bounden to do their suit there, and that not for the service of their persons, but for the service of their fees. But women, infants within the age of twenty-one years, deaf, dumb, idiots, those who are indicted or appealed of mortal felony, before they be acquitted, diseased persons, and excommunicated persons are exempted from doing suit." Mirror of Justices, 50 51.
In the section "Of the Sheriff's Turns," it is said:
"The sheriff's by ancient ordinances hold several meetings twice in the year in every hundred; where all the freeholders within the hundred are bound to appear for the service of their fees." Mirror of Justices, 50.
The following statute was passed by Edward I., seventy years after
Magna Carta:
"Forasmuch also as sheriffs, hundreders, and bailiffs of liberties, have used to grieve those which be placed under them, putting in assizes and juries men diseased and decrepit, and having continual or sudden disease; and men also that dwelled not in the country at the time of the summons; and summon also an unreasonable number of jurors, for to extort money from some of them, for letting them go in peace, and so the assizes and juries pass many times by poor men, and the rich abide at home by reason of their bribes; it is ordained that from henceforth in one assize no more shall be summoned than four and twenty; and old men above three score and ten years, being continually sick, or being diseased at the time of the summons, or not dwelling in that country, shall not be put in juries of petit assizes." St. 13 Edward I., ch. 38. (1285.)