MEDIEVAL STUDIES 117: ENGLISH CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL HSTORY Professor Donahue, Mr. Berkhofer April 1, 1991

The following three quotations describe the use of groups of subjects in administering the legal system. Ultimately, what is described here is going to be called "the jury." You are to write a coherent essay about the development of the jury over the period from roughly 1000 to roughly 1215, making use of these quotations. You may, of course, refer to other material that deals with this issue, but a good essay will make use of all three quotations. The Wantage Code of King Ethelred II (the "Unready") (980-1016) S&M no. 5 (expanded) These are the laws (laga) that King Ethelred and his witan have drawn up at Wantage [Berkshire; the references in these laws suggest that were intended for the area known as the "Danelaw"] for the improvement of the peace. 1. Namely, in order that his peace may remain as firm as it best was in the days of his ancestors [breach of] that peace which he gives with his own hand [i.e., declared by him in person] is not to be atoned for by compensation. ... 3.1. And that a meeting is to be held in each wapentake, and the twelve leading thegns, and with the reeve, are to come forward and swear on the relics which are put into their hands that they will accuse no innocent man nor conceal any guilty one. 3.2. And they are then to seize the men who have frequently been accused ... . 3.4. And each man frequently accused is to go to the three-fold ordeal, or to pay four-fold. Henry II: Assize of Northampton (1176) S&M no. 32 4. Item, if any freeholder dies, his heirs shall remain in such seisin as their father had of his fee on the day that he was alive and dead ... . And afterwards they shall go to their lord and shall perform to him their obligation for relief and other things owed from their fee. ... And if the lord of the fee denies to the heirs of the deceased the seisin of the said deceased['s property] which they demand, the justices of the lord king shall have recognition made in the matter by twelve lawful men, as to what seisin in this respect the deceased had on the day that he was alive and dead. And according to the recognition thus made, those [justices] shall make restitution to his heirs. ... John: Magna Carta (1215) S&M no. 44 39. No freeman shall be captured or imprisoned or disseised or outlawed or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go against him or send against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. ...