202 The Period of Constitution Making
general inquiries before this time granted within any
seignories, for the mischiefs and oppressions which have
been done to the people by such inquiries, shall cease
utterly and be repealed."x By this act they first became
really justices. From this time till the end of the middle
ages, there was no crime except treason that could not be
tried before the justices of the peace. Thus they and the
justices of assize were, on the criminal side, doing the
same work, and (much that had formerly been done by
the justices itinerant was now done by these justices
resident.2 It was an awkward situation, and not until
after the Tudor period was a serious attempt made to dis-
tinguish between the two jurisdictions.
As the new local courts encroached upon the town's
business of indicting and holding preliminary hearings,
the sheriffs became more and more solicitous about their
declining jurisdiction and the accruing profits. They
were tempted to many abuses, especially the entertain-
ing of accusations made for purposes of extortion. There
was an increasing outcry against these misdeeds during
the fifteenth century, and in the first year of Edward IV,
an act was passed to the effect that in the future
the above persons [sheriffs and their various deputies] should
not have power to arrest anyone, or levy fines by colour of
indictments so taken; but they should deliver all such indict-
ments to the justices of the peace at their next sessions of the
peace, under the penalty of forty pounds.3
On the face of it, this would seem to take away from the
tourn everything except view of frankpledge, but in after
*A. and S., pp. 127, 128.
2 This parallelism of jurisdiction and the early popularity of the justices
of the peace are illustrated in the petition of the commons, in the oppres-
sive and troublous early reign of Richard II., "that during the war justices
in eyre and of trailbaston shall not go on circuit among the said poor com-
mons, but that the justices of the peace hold their courts according to the
tenure of their commission."—A. and vS., p. 143. Justices of trailbaston
(first heard of in 1304) were circuit justices specially commissioned to deal
with the organised bands of lawless followers and desperadoes known by
that name. On the lack of civil jurisdiction allowed to justices of the
peace, see above, p. 185, note 3.
3 Reeves, History of the English Law, ii, 10.