[811] Ibid. p. 44: 'Postea taxata fuit dicta misericordia per Rogerum de Suhtcote, Willelmum de Scaccario, Hugonem de Cumbe liberos sectatores curie usque ad duas marcas.'
[812] Introduction to Seld. Soc. ii. p. lxv.
[813] Ibid. pp. 163, 166.
[814] Comp. Heussler, Institutionen des deutschen Privatrechts, i. 215; ii. 622; but I cannot agree with him as the ceremony being employed only where there was to be a 'donatio mortis causa.' In connexion with this the part played by the Salman is misunderstood, as it seems to me.
[815] The court rolls of Common Law manors do not think it necessary to give the particulars about the transmission of the rod. But the description of the practice at Stoneleigh, which, though ancient demesne, presents manorial customs of the same character as those followed on ordinary estates, leaves no doubt as to the course of the proceedings. See above the passage quoted on pp. 113-6. Comp. a parallel ceremony as to freehold, Madox, Formulare, p. 54. The instance has been pointed out to me by Prof. Maitland.
[816] See Pollock, Land-laws, 199, 208 (2nd ed.).
[817] Seld. Soc. ii. 33; insertion of a lease in the roll; p. 35: 'Lis conquievit inter ipsos ita quod concordati fuerunt in hac forma de voluntate domini et in plena curia ita videlicet quod predictus Willelmus de Baggemere concessit, remisit et quietum clamavit pro se et heredibus suis ... et hoc paratus est verificare per recordum rotulorum seu 12 juratores ejusdem curie per voluntatem domini et senescalli.' p. 166: 'Et sciatis quod si haberem ad manus rotulos curie tempore Willelmi de Lewes ego vobis certificarem et vobis monstrarem multa mirabilia non opportune facta.'
[818] These points have been conclusively settled by the masterly investigations of Brunner, Zeugen- und Inquisitions-beweis (Abhandlungen der Wiener Akademie) and Entstehung der Schwurgerichte.
[819] Seld. Soc. ii. 41: 'Quod talis sit consuetudo manerii et quod dicta Augnes sic venit in plena curia cum marito suo et totum jus et clamium quod haberet vel aliquo modo habere poterit in toto vel in parte hujus burgagii in manus domini ad opus ejusdem R. reddidit ponit super curiam ... Et 12 juratores curie,' etc.
[820] I do not mean to say that the analytical distinctions which we make between fact and law, between presenters to a tribunal and assessors of a tribunal, were clearly perceived or consequently carried out in the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. On the contrary there was a good deal of confusion in details, and the instinctive logic of facts had more to do in dividing and settling institutions than conscious reasoning. Juries and assizes of the Royal Courts might be called upon incidentally to decide legal questions, but, in the aggregate, there can be hardly a doubt that the sworn inquests before the Royal judges were working to provide the Courts with a knowledge of local facts and perhaps conditions, while the manorial court gave legal decisions.