; and, secondly, that the laws of the king (not being
printed, and the people being unable to read them if they had been
printed) must have been in a great measure unknown to them, and could
have been received by them only on the authority of the sheriff,
bailiff, or steward. If laws were to be received by them on the
authority of these officers, the latter would have imposed such laws
upon the people as they pleased.

These courts, that have now been described, were continued in full power
long after Magna Carta, no alteration being made in them by that
instrument, _nor in the mode of administering justice in them_.

There is no evidence whatever, so far as I am aware, that the juries had
any _less_ power in the courts held by the king's justices, than in
those held by sheriffs, bailiffs, and stewards; and there is no
probability whatever that they had. All the difference between the
former courts and the latter undoubtedly was, that, in the former, the
juries had the benefit of the advice and assistance of the justices,
which would, of course, be considered valuable in difficult cases, on
account of the justices being regarded as more learned, not only in the
laws of the king, but also in the common law, or "law of the land."

The conclusion, therefore, I think, inevitably must be, that neither the
laws of the king, nor the instructions of his justices, had any
authority over jurors beyond what the latter saw fit to accord to them.
And this view is confirmed by this remark of Hallam, the truth of which
all will acknowledge:

"The rules of legal decision, among a rude people, are always very
simple; not serving much to guide, far less to control the feelings
of natural equity."--_2 Middle Ages_, ch. 8, part 2, p. 465.

It is evident that it was in this way, _by the free and concurrent
judgments of juries, approving and enforcing certain laws and rules of
conduct, corresponding to their notions of right and justice_, that the
laws and customs, which, for the most part, made up the _common law_,
and were called, at that day, "_the good laws, and good customs_," and
"_the law of the land_," were established. How otherwise could they ever
have become established, as Blackstone says they were, "_by long and
immemorial usage, and by their universal reception throughout the
kingdom_,"[54] when, as the Mirror says, "_justice was so done, that
every one so judged his neighbor, by such judgment as a man could not
e