ng to the City what the King's
Serjeant was to the Crown. The appointment lay with the Court of Common
Council, and till 1824 the custom was to elect the senior of the Common
Pleaders in the Mayor's Court. He was originally rather an advocate than
a judge. The office goes back at least as far as the commencement of the
fourteenth century, being mentioned in the civic records of that date.

[9] This and the other prayers cited are translated from the "Formulae
Liturgicae," published by Gengler and Roziere, and included in
Henderson's "Select Documents" (Bell).

[10] The "Dialogus de Scaccario" contains the following legendary
account of the origin of this custom, which, like so many others, was an
Anglo-Saxon usage continued under the Normans:

"Now in the primitive state of the kingdom after the Conquest those who
were left of the Anglo-Saxon subjects secretly laid ambushes for the
suspected and hated race of the Normans, and here and there, when
opportunity offered, killed them secretly in the woods and in remote
places: as vengeance for whom--when the Kings and their ministers had
for some years with exquisite kinds of tortures, raged against the
Anglo-Saxons; and they, nevertheless, had not, in consequence of these
measures altogether desisted--the following plan was hit upon: that the
so-called "hundred," in which a Norman was found killed in this
way--when he who had caused his death was not to be found, and it did
not appear from his flight who he was--should be condemned to a large
sum of tested silver for the fisc; some indeed to _l._36, some to
_l._44, according to the different localities, and the frequency of the
slaying.

"And they say that this is done with the following end in view, namely,
that a general penalty of this kind might make it safe for the
passers-by, and that each person might hasten to punish so great a crime
and to give up to justice him through whom so enormous a loss fell on
the whole neighbourhood."--Henderson's "Select Documents," p. 66.

[11] In Norman times the prosecutor was compensated _twofold_ out of the
chattels of the tried and convicted thief; the rest of his goods went to
the King.

[12] Except in the matter of succession. See p. 219.

[13] "Common town bargains" were the rule also at Dublin.

[14] This and the whole of the following evidence, with few exceptions,
was derived from the appendices to the reports of the Municipal
Corporations Commission of 1835; and it i