has been adopted in many countries in which jury trial was not
native or had been strangled or imperfectly developed under
local conditions.
The origin of the system in England has been much investigated by lawyers and historians. The result of these investigations is a fairly general agreement that the germ of jury trial is to be found in the Frankish inquest (recognitio or inquisitio) transplanted into England by the Norman kings. The essence of this inquest was the summoning of a body of neighbours by a public officer to give answer upon oath (recognoscere veritatem) on some question of fact or law ( jus), or of mixed fact and law. At the outset the object of the inquiry was usually to obtain information for the king, e.g. to ascertain facts needed for assessing taxation. Indeed Domesday Book appears to be made up by recording the answers of inquests.
The origin of juries is very fully discussed in W. Forsyth’s History of Trial by Jury (1852), and the various theories advanced are more concisely stated in W. Stubbs’s Constitutional History (vol. i.) and in E. A. Freeman’s Norman Conquest (vol. v.). Until the modern examination of historical documents proved the contrary, the jury system, like all other institutions, was popularly regarded as the work of a single legislator, and in England it has been usually assigned to Alfred the Great. This supposition is without historical foundation, nor is it correct to regard the jury as “copied from this or that kindred institution to be found in this or that German or Scandinavian land,” or brought over ready made by Hengist or by William.[1] “Many writers of authority,” says Stubbs, “have maintained that the entire jury system is indigenous in England, some deriving it from Celtic tradition based on the principles of Roman law, and adopted by the Anglo-Saxons and Normans from the people they had conquered. Others have regarded it as a product of that legal genius of the Anglo-Saxons of which Alfred is the mythical impersonation, or as derived by that nation from the customs of primitive Germany or from their intercourse with the Danes. Nor even when it is admitted that the system of ‘recognition’ was introduced from Normandy have legal writers agreed as to the source from which the Normans themselves derived it. One scholar maintains that it was brought by the Norsemen from Scandinavia; another that it was derived from the processes of the canon law; another that it was developed on Gallic soil from Roman principles; another that it came from Asia through the crusades,” or was borrowed by the Angles and Saxons from their Slavonic neighbours in northern Europe. The true answer is that forms of trial resembling the jury system in various particulars are to be found in the primitive institutions of all nations. That which comes nearest in time and character to trial by jury is the system of recognition by sworn inquest, introduced into England by the Normans. “That inquest,” says Stubbs, “is directly derived from the Frank capitularies, into which it may have been adopted from the fiscal regulations of the Theodosian code, and thus own some distant relationship with the Roman jurisprudence.” However that may be, the system of “recognition” consisted in questions of fact, relating to fiscal or judicial business, being submitted by the officers of the crown to sworn witnesses in the local courts. Freeman points out that the Norman rulers of England were obliged, more than native rulers would have been, to rely on this system for accurate information. They needed to have a clear and truthful account of disputed points set before them, and such an account was sought for in the oaths of the recognitors.[2] The Norman conquest, therefore, fostered the growth of those native germs common to England with other countries out of which the institution of juries grew. Recognition, as introduced by the Normans, is only, in this point of view, another form of the same principle which shows itself in the compurgators, in the frith-borh (frank-pledge), in every detail of the action of the popular courts before the conquest. Admitting with Stubbs that the Norman recognition was the instrument which the lawyers in England ultimately shaped into trial by jury, Freeman maintains none the less that the latter is distinctively English. Forsyth comes to substantially the same conclusion. Noting the jury germs of the Anglo-Saxon period, he shows how out of those elements, which continued in full force under the Anglo-Normans, was produced at last the institution of the jury. “As yet it was only implied in the requirement that disputed questions should be determined by the voice of sworn witnesses taken from the neighbourhood, and deposing to the truth of what they had seen or heard.” The conclusions of Sir F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, expressed in their History of English Law, and based on a closer study, are to the same effect.
This inquest then was a royal institution and not a survival from Anglo-Saxon law or popular custom, under which compurgation and the ordeal were the accepted modes of trying issues of fact.
The inquest by recognition, formerly an inquest of office, i.e. to ascertain facts in the interests of the crown or the exchequer, was gradually allowed between subjects as a mode of settling disputes of fact. This extension began with the assize of novel disseisin, whereby the king protected by royal writ and inquest of neighbours every seisin of a freehold. This was followed by the grand assize, applicable to questions affecting freehold or status. A defendant in such an action was enabled by an enactment of Henry II. to decline trial by combat and choose trial by assize, which was conducted as follows. The sheriff summoned four knights of the neighbourhood, who being sworn chose the twelve lawful knights most cognisant of the facts, to determine on their oaths which had the better right to the land. If they all knew the facts and were agreed as to their verdict, well and good; if some or all were ignorant, the fact was certified in court, and new knights were named, until twelve were found to be agreed. The same course was followed when the twelve were not unanimous. New knights were added until the twelve were agreed. This was called afforcing the assize. At this time the knowledge on which the jurors acted was their own personal knowledge, acquired independently of the trial. “So entirely,” says Forsyth, “did they proceed upon their own previously formed view of the facts in dispute that they seem to have considered themselves at liberty to pay no attention to evidence offered in court, however clearly it might disprove the case which they were prepared to support.” The use of recognition is prescribed by the constitutions of Clarendon (1166) for cases of dispute as to lay or clerical tenure. See Forsyth, p. 131; Stubbs, i. 617.
This procedure by the assize was confined to real actions, and while it preceded, it is not identical with the modern jury trial in civil cases, which was gradually introduced by consent of the parties and on pressure from the judges. Jury trial proper differs from the grand and petty assizes in that the assizes were summoned at the same time as the defendant to answer a question formulated in the writ; whereas in the ordinary jury trial no order for a jury could be made till the parties by their pleadings had come to an issue of fact and had put themselves on the country, posuerunt se super patriam (Pollock and Maitland, i. 119–128; ii. 601, 615, 621).
The Grand Jury.—In Anglo-Saxon times there was an institution analogous to the grand jury in criminal cases, viz. the twelve senior thegns, who, according to an ordinance of Æthelred II., were sworn in the county court that they would accuse no innocent man and acquit no guilty one. The twelve thegns were a jury of presentment or accusation, like the grand jury of later times, and the absolute guilt or innocence of those accused by them had to be determined by subsequent proceedings—by compurgation or ordeal. Whether this is the actual origin of the grand jury or not, the assizes of Clarendon (1166) and Northampton (1176) establish the criminal jury on a definite basis.
In the laws of Edward the Confessor and the earlier Anglo-Saxon kings are found many traces of a public duty to bring
