The coroner’s functions, originally so wide and varied, have been gradually narrowed down, until now there is practically only one duty commonly associated with his office, namely, the holding of an inquest on a dead body where there are suspicious circumstances.[[661]] In addition to this, however, he is still responsible for treasure-trove or valuables found buried in the ground, and he is also competent to act generally as the substitute of the sheriff in case of the latter’s illness or absence during his year of office.
(4) The bailiffs. The mention by name of three classes of local officers is supplemented by the addition of an indefinite word sufficiently wide to cover all grades of Crown officials. The term “bailiff” may be correctly applied to every individual to whom authority of any sort has been delegated by another. It would, in the present instance, include the assistants of sheriffs and constables, the men who actually served writs, or distrained the goods of debtors; and also generally all local officials of every description holding authority directly or indirectly from the Crown. The district over which his office extended was called his “bailiwick,” a term often applied to the county considered as the sphere of the sheriff’s labours.
[631]. Traces of it may be found as late as the reign of Henry II. See Glanvill, I. c. 1.
[632]. The gradual triumph of royal justice over all rivals in the sphere of criminal law is thus symbolized by the extension of the phrase “pleas of the Crown,” which can be traced through a series of documents—e.g. (a) the laws of Cnut; (b) Glanvill, I. cc. I, 2, and 3; (c) the Assizes of Clarendon and Northampton; (d) the ordinance of 1194; and (e) the present chapter of Magna Carta.
[633]. The Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1887 (50 and 51 Victoria, c. 35) gave him jurisdiction over three of them.
[634]. See Forma procedendi in placitis coronae regis, cc. 20 and 21, cited in Sel. Charters, 260.
[635]. Ibid., c. 21.
[636]. Ibid., c. 20.
[637]. The Forma procedendi of 1194 is usually considered the earliest distinct reference to the office of coroner. Dr. Gross, however (History of Office of Coroner, 1892, and Select Cases from Coroners’ Rolls, 1896), claims to have found traces of their existence at a much earlier date. Prof. Maitland remains unconvinced (Eng. Hist. Rev., VIII. 758, and Pollock and Maitland, I. 519).