ize no more shall be summoned than
four and twenty; and old men above three score and ten years, being
continually sick, or being diseased at the time of the summons, or
not dwelling in that country, shall not be put in juries of petit
assizes."--_St. 13 Edward I._, ch. 38. (1285.)

Although this command to the sheriffs and other officers, not to summon,
as jurors, those who, from age and disease, were physically incapable of
performing the duties, may not, of itself, afford any absolute or legal
implication, by which we can determine precisely who were, and who were
not, eligible as jurors at common law, yet the exceptions here made
nevertheless carry a seeming confession with them that, at common law,
all male adults were eligible as jurors.

But the main principle of the feudal system itself shows that _all_ the
full and free adult male members of the state--that is, all who were
free born, and had not lost their civil rights by crime, or
otherwise--_must_, at common law, have been eligible as jurors. What was
that principle? It was, that the state rested for support upon the land,
and not upon taxation levied upon the people personally. The lands of
the country were considered the property of the state, and were made to
support the state _in this way_. A portion of them was set apart to the
king, the rents of which went to pay his personal and official
expenditures, not including the maintenance of armies, or the
administration of justice. War and the administration of justice were
provided for in the following manner. The freemen, or the freeborn adult
male members of the state--who had not forfeited their political
rights--were entitled to land _of right_, (until all the land was taken
up,) on condition of their rendering certain military and civil services
to the state. The military services consisted in serving personally as
soldiers, or contributing an equivalent in horses, provisions, or other
military supplies. The civil services consisted, among other things, in
serving as jurors (and, it would appear, as witnesses) in the courts of
justice. For these services they received no compensation other than
the use of their lands. In this way the state was sustained; and the
king had no power to levy additional burdens or taxes upon the people.
The persons holding lands on these terms were called _freeholders_--in
later times _freemen_--meaning free and full members of the state.

Now, as the principl