Law Courts 149
Henry II. seems to have issued this writ whenever he
chose, and in this way an action which involved the ques-
tion of best right to land could be brought bodily into
the king's court. In the proprietary actions concerning
advowson, that we have seen drawn into the royal court,
the same choice was given the possessor as in the case
just considered. In these instances, the king was getting
control of, and changing, old actions; the possessory
assizes were newer.
Henry II.'s third great judicial innovation was the use
in his courts of a new method of learning of suspected
criminals. The first mention of the method in this reign
was in another connection. In article 6 of the Constitu-
tions of Clarendon, the king was correcting what he con-
sidered an abuse in the church courts, as well as providing
a means for bringing to trial those whom individuals dared
not accuse. Men were not to be brought to trial on
unsubstantiated rumour, but if some individual were not
ready to come forward and make the accusation, twelve
freemen of the suspected man's neighbourhood were to be
put on oath before the bishop and state their belief as to
whether he ought to be tried for the matter in question.
The sheriff, at the bishop's request, was to bring these
men before him. Two years later, in the Assize of Claren-
don,1 this machinery of accusation received its epoch-
making extension. It is a notable instance of Henry's
boldness and originality in dealing with the difficulties
and disorders which he found in the country. The prob-
lem of bringing criminals to justice had remained to this
time unsolved, except for the old method of private ini-
tiative—the appeal. The wronged man or his relatives
could appeal the suspect and the courts would take
cognisance of the case when thus started. There was the
Leges Henrici Primi and in Cnute's laws. This one was the placitum
brewum vel preceptorum regis contemptomn*. It was a royal offence to dis-
obey the king's writ. Hence if the king orders A to restore land to B and
A disobeys, it is a case to be tried in the king's court and will turn on the
question of the better right to the land.
1 A. and S., document 14, and W. and N.f pp. 375-38°-