196 The Period of Constitution Making

activities of the central government multiplied. Henry
II. 's dissatisfaction with the sheriffs and the grounds for
it are shown in the famous Inquest of the Sheriffs. * The
situation called for the creation of a local official who
should be strictly under royal control and to whom part of
the sheriff's work should be given. Such a creation we
find in the establishment of coroners in the reign of Henry
II. There is evidence of something like a coroner in
Henry I.'s time, when occasional mention was made of
justices who were to "keep the pleas of the crown,'* It
was in the earlier reign that the conception of crown pleas
first became at all clear.2 Like Henry I.'s other devices,
coroners, if there were any, disappeared under Stephen.
Henry II. ?s coroner wa^aJs05^

the "shire "court afiSjEra^ Hisbeing

a justiceTinplies that he tried cases and could empanel a
JH£ZJ£JB!!^^ If he had not actually tried

cases, he could not, according to the ideas of the time,
have used a jury. But he also kept thejgleasof the crown,
and this came to be his special work jiFlSeant that he
held greji^Linary hearings and

ir
criminal matters forjaterjuse b^aberiff
TffiiTwasTiis principal work in Richard's reign, as is shown
by the well-known mention of him in the commission of
the itinerant justices in 1194. 3 This has often been re-
garded as the order creating the office, but the coroner's
previous existence has been proved, and this order was
undoubtedly for the purpose of making coroners general
throughout the counties and fixing their number and
duties. But that the coroner did not cease to be a justice
at least until 1215 is proved by article 24 of Magna garta,
which forbad the sheriff as wgll as the coroner^tQ^hpld
ptea^^TE^crcwnT^ The sheriff continued to be a justice
inTEeTesser criminal cases and in civil cases, but the
1 A. and S., document 15. 2 See above, p. 160, note 2.
* A. and S., p. 30; W. and N., p. 93: "Moreover, in each county let
there be chosen three knights and one clerk keepers of the pleas of the
crown/'
4 A. and S., p. 46; W. and N., p. 386.