dministrative measures
which Henry the First had begun. The fabric of our judicial legislation
commences in 1166 with the Assize of Clarendon, the first object of which
was to provide for the order of the realm by reviving the old English
system of mutual security or frankpledge. No stranger might abide in any
place save a borough and only there for a single night unless sureties
were given for his good behaviour; and the list of such strangers was to
be submitted to the itinerant justices. In the provisions of this assize
for the repression of crime we find the origin of trial by jury, so often
attributed to earlier times. Twelve lawful men of each hundred, with four
from each township, were sworn to present those who were known or reputed
as criminals within their district for trial by ordeal. The jurors were
thus not merely witnesses, but sworn to act as judges also in determining
the value of the charge, and it is this double character of Henry's
jurors that has descended to our "grand jury," who still remain charged
with the duty of presenting criminals for trial after examination of the
witnesses against them. Two later steps brought the jury to its modern
condition. Under Edward the First witnesses acquainted with the
particular fact in question were added in each case to the general jury,
and by the separation of these two classes of jurors at a later time the
last became simply "witnesses" without any judicial power, while the
first ceased to be witnesses at all and became our modern jurors, who are
only judges of the testimony given. With this assize too a practice which
had prevailed from the earliest English times, the practice of
"compurgation," passed away. Under this system the accused could be
acquitted of the charge by the voluntary oath of his neighbours and
kinsmen; but this was abolished by the Assize of Clarendon, and for the
fifty years which followed it his trial, after the investigation of the
grand jury, was found solely in the ordeal or "judgement of God," where
innocence was proved by the power of holding hot iron in the hand or by
sinking when flung into the water, for swimming was a proof of guilt. It
was the abolition of the whole system of ordeal by the Council of Lateran
in 1216 which led the way to the establishment of what is called a "petty
jury" for the final trial of prisoners.

[Sidenote: Murder of Thomas]

But Henry's work of reorganization had hardly begun when it was broken by
t