to the jurisdiction of the
sheriff. * * _The freeholders of the county are the real judges in
this court, and the sheriff is the ministerial officer._"--_3
Stephens_, 395-6. _3 Blackstone_, 35-6.

Blackstone describes these courts, as courts "_wherein injuries were
redressed in an easy and expeditious manner, by the suffrage of
neighbors and friends_."--_3 Blackstone_, 30.

"When we read of a certain number of _freemen_ chosen by the parties
to decide in a dispute--all bound by oath to vote _in foro
conscientia_--and that _their_ decision, _not the will of the judge
presiding, ended the suit_, we at once perceive that a great
improvement has been made in the old form of compurgation--an
improvement which impartial observation can have no hesitation to
pronounce as identical in its main features with the trial by
jury."--_Dunham's Middle Ages_, Sec. 2, B. 2, Ch. 1. _57 Lardner's
Cab. Cyc._, 60.

"The bishop and the earl, or, in his absence, the gerefa, (sheriff,)
and sometimes both the earl and the gerefa, presided at the
_schyre-mote_ (county court); the gerefa (sheriff) usually alone
presided at the _mote_ (meeting or court) of the hundred. In the
cities and towns which were not within any peculiar jurisdiction,
there was held, at regular stated intervals, a _burgh mote_, (borough
court,) for the administration of justice, at which a gerefa, or a
magistrate appointed by the king, presided."--_Spence's Origin of the
Laws and Political Institutions of Modern Europe_, p. 444.

"The right of the plaintiff and defendant, and of the prosecutor and
criminal, _to challenge the judices_, (judges,) _or assessors,[50]
appointed to try the cause in civil matters, and to decide upon the
guilt or innocence of the accused in criminal matters_, is recognized
in the treatise called the Laws of Henry the First; but I cannot
discover, from the Anglo-Saxon laws or histories, that before the
Conquest the parties had any general right of challenge; _indeed, had
such right existed, the injunctions to all persons standing in the
situation of judges (jurors) to do right according to their
conscience_, would scarcely have been so frequently and anxiously
repeated."--_Spence_, 456.

Hale says:

"The administration of the common justice of the kingdom seems to be
wholly dispensed in the county courts, hundred courts, and
courts-baron;