THE MANOR COURT
in the late thirteenth century the Hales Rolls show us that the
juries of presentment at the Great Courts each half-year were
made up on successive occasions of very much the same men.
"Of the men in eleven lists of Great Court jurors after 1293, one
had served ten times, two on nine occasions and two on eight
occasions. In all there are 42 names, and of these 20 served only
once, 7 in the last list."1 Side by side with this we may note that
Maitiand found a jury at Gidding made up of the chief pledges,
and he tells us that "similar entries have been found on other
rolls relating to the Ramsey estates".2 This state of affairs was
not confined to Ramsey manors, for Dr Page has found much the
same happening a little later on the Crowland estates. There a
small group of men formed a "manorial bureaucracy", so much
so that an entry of 1368 concerns an order given "to the whole
homage, that is to say, the presenters as sworn below".3 An
interesting half-way stage, as it were, is seen at Niddingwirth in
1288, where we have twelve jurors and also eight chief pledges,
and all of them present offences of various kinds.4 After 1294
this practice ceases, and the presentments are henceforth made
by a jury of twelve.5
The juries of inquisition were much more variable in their size
and composition. They were often ad hoc bodies, and were more
and more used to make sworn inquisitions as to verifiable facts
—thus taking the place of the older method of compurgation and
appeal to the supernatural. They could consist of any number of
jurors—at Hales they range from four or five to twelve members,
and once, when a very important investigation had to be made,
there were as many as twenty-three.6 These men were often
drawn from the actual vicinity of the matter in question, and are
called "the neighbours"; other juries were composed of the men
from one or more neighbouring vills; others again were carefully
selected, apparently, so as to include representatives from all the
vills of the manor.7
1 Hales Rolls, xxxi; and cf. Crowland Estates, 68.
a Selden Soc. n, 87. See also Selden Soc. iv, no. "Year after year the
same names appear, and on comparing these names with those of tie chief
pledges.. .it becomes clear that the leet jury was generally, if not always,
composed of twelve of the chief pledges." 8 Crowland Estates, 67,
* Ramsey Rolls, 189; and cf. 191, 193, 196, 200. 5 Ibid. 202 f.
e Hales Rolls, 466, 453, 583, 404, etc.; cf. Ramsey Rolls, 191, 200.
7 Hales Rolls, 395,397,421,423,4^5, 5^5; cf. Ramsey Rolls, 183,188, 206.