Law Courts 157
became quite naturally the normal method of trial in civil
cases in the king's court, superseding the old proofs.
The jury of accusation, however, the jury which pre-
sented suspected murderers, robbers, and thieves, seems
something new, for it did not answer the old questions
about property or revenue; it was the same machinery,
but employed upon a different subject-matter. It was
not however new, for, though not the normal use of the
inquest, the Prankish kings of the ninth century had em-
ployed the sworn statements of men in the localities to
find out about delinquent officials or serious crimes, mat-
ters that threatened the country's peace. A use of the
inquest similar to this had at some time passed into the
Prankish church, probably by royal grant; and, in certain
places, this so-called synodal jury had become a well-
known institution. There is no conclusive evidence,
however, that a presenting jury had existed in either
England or Normandy before the time of Henry II.1 In
the Constitutions of Clarendon, is a provision which sug-
gests such a jury for cases in the church courts where "the
accused be such that no one will or dares to accuse them.'*
actions was through the option of litigants. They had learned its useful-
ness from the assizes. "In the course of time the jury, which has its roots
in the fertile ground of consent, will grow at the expense of the assize? which
has sprung from the stony soil of ordinance." P. and M., i, 149.
1 This method of presenting criminals may have been occasionally
used by the Norman kings in connection with matters touching the royal
revenue, for there were fines and confiscations connected with crime.
But Henry II. had a broad peace purpose in addition to his revenue motives.
Regarding the famous and anomalous case of the twelve senior thegms in
the reign of Ethelred II., Maitland says: "There is however one law
that must cause some difficulty. It is a law of Ethelred the Unready, pub-
lished, so it would seem, in the year 997 and applicable only to the Danish
district. In it we hear how a moot is to be held in every wapentake, and
how the twelve eldest thegns are to go out with the reeve and to swear upon
the relic that he puts into their hands that they will accuse no innocent
and conceal no guilty man. Certainly this looks like a jury of accusation;
but the context will make us doubt whether we have here a law of any
generality. There seem however to be good reasons for believing that
some of the Scandinavian nations came by a route of their own to something
that was very like the jury. . . . We cannot say a priori that there is only
one possible origin for the jury, we cannot even say that England was
unprepared for the introduction of this institution; but that the Norman
duke brought it with him as one of his prerogatives can hardly be disputed,"
—R and M. i, 142, 143.