gna Carta, the laws were
written in Latin, a language that could be read by few persons except
the priests, who were also the lawyers of the nation. Mackintosh says,
"the first act of the House of Commons composed and recorded in the
English tongue," was in 1415, two centuries after Magna Carta.[47] Up to
this time, and for some seventy years later, the laws were generally
written either in Latin or French; both languages incapable of being
read by the common people, as well Normans as Saxons; and one of them,
the Latin, not only incapable of being read by them, but of being even
understood when it was heard by them.

To suppose that the people were bound to obey, and juries to enforce,
laws, many of which were unwritten, none of which _they_ could read, and
the larger part of which (those written in Latin) they could not
translate, or understand when they heard them read, is equivalent to
supposing the nation sunk in the most degrading slavery, instead of
enjoying a liberty of their own choosing.

Their knowledge of the laws passed by the king was, of course, derived
only from oral information; and "_the good laws_," as some of them were
called, in contradistinction to others--those which the people at large
esteemed to be good laws--were doubtless enforced by the juries, and the
others, as a general thing, disregarded.[48]

That such was the nature of judicial proceedings, and of the power of
juries, up to the time of Magna Carta, is further shown by the following
authorities.

"The sheriffs and bailiffs caused the free tenants of their bailiwics
to meet at their counties and hundreds; _at which justice was so
done, that every one so judged his neighbor by such judgment as a man
could not elsewhere receive in the like cases_, until such times as
the customs of the realm were put in writing, and certainly
published.

"And although a freeman commonly was not to serve (as a juror or
judge) without his assent, nevertheless it was assented unto that
free tenants should meet together in the counties and hundreds, and
lords courts, if they were not specially exempted to do such suits,
and _there judged their neighbors_."--_Mirror of Justices_, p. 7, 8.

Gilbert, in his treatise on the Constitution of England, says:

"In the county courts, if the debt was above forty shillings, there
issued a _justicies_ (a commission) to the sheriff, to enable him to
hold such a plea, _where