356 The Period of Constitution Making"
This seems to have been the earliest connection between
the local use of representative knights for governmental
purposes and popular election.1 By the time of Magna
Carta, undoubted instances are found of the popular
election of knights for various local purposes. In article
18 of the Charter, there is mention of "four knights of
the county chosen by the county/' who were to act with
the itinerant justices in holding the possessory assizes.
The last word in the quotation might well be translated
''county-court," as the Latin comitatus means that also,
and the county court was the only assembly through which
the county could act. In article 48 of the same docu-
ment, in providing for an inquisition into the bad forest
customs, it says that these "shall immediately be en-
quired into in each county by twelve sworn knights of
the same county, chosen by the honest men of the same
county." This language admits of no doubt that there
was election in the county courts. As a final example,
and one of much significance because it relates to the
use of knights in assessing and collecting a tax, the
language of a writ of 1220 for collecting a carucage may
be cited. It is addressed to the sheriff of each county:
. . . two shillings, to be collected by your hand aud the
hands of two of the more lawful knights of your county,
who are to be elected to do this by the will and counsel of all
of the county in full county court. And so we command you,
firmly and strictly enjoining that, having summoned your
Ml county court, by the will and counsel of those of the
county court, you cause to be elected two of the more law-
ful knights of the whole county, who shall better know, wish,
and be able to prosecute this business to our advantage;
and having associated them with you, you are immediately
1 "The machinery for the election of coroners seems to have been the
mould which shaped the representation of the shires in parliament; the
coroners were prototypes of the parliamentary knights of the shire. Elect-
ed knights of the shire were also employed for other local purposes, but
in a more casual or transitory way than in the case of the coroner. This
latter office was a permanent institution, which must have helped to habitu-
ate the nation to the idea of county representation.*'—Gross, Select Coro-
ners* RoUs, p. xxxv.