2 6o HAR VARD LA W RE VIE W. the Assise of Northampton (i 176), "a reissue and expansion of the Assise of Clarendon . . . drawn up in the form of instruc- tions to the six committees of judges who were to visit the circuits now marked out," the fourth article provides for continuing in the heir of a freeholder the seisin that his father had, and, if the lord refuse it, for what appears to be the assise of mortdancestor, — Justitiae . . . faciant inde fieri percognitionem per duodecitn legales homines qualem seisinam defunctus inde habuit die quo f nit vivus et mortuus : et sicut recognitum fuerit, ita haeredibus ejus restituant. Article five requires the taking of assises of novel dis- seisin ; or, to give it just as it is expressed, the taking of a recog- nition on the Assise {super Assisam), 1 of disseisins made since the king came to England after the peace between him and his son. (5.) To the end of the period now under consideration belongs Glanville. In this book we find frequent mention of the assisa, recognitio, jurata, patria, visinetum, as a form of proof, — in other words, of trial by jury. Glanville takes up first the writ of right (Lib. i. c. 5), and after dealing with a variety of prelimi- nary matters, such as the essoins, getting the parties into court and the plaintiff through his declaration, he tells us (Lib. ii. c. 3) that the tenant now has his election to defend himself per duellum, vel ponere se inde in magnarn assisam domini Regis 2, et petere recog- nitionem quis eorum majus jus habet in terra ilia. If the tenant puts himself on the great assise, and the plaintiff assents in court, he cannot withdraw. If he does not assent, he must show a good reason, as that the parties are both descended from the same line as the inheritance ; 3 and if this be disputed he must establish it (c. 6). Glanville here pauses (c. 7) to praise the assise in the well-known passage in which this " constitutio " is attributed to the royal bounty, and is contrasted with the duel as regards its justice, reasonable- I In view of the use of this phrase here and in Glanville, as referring to legislative or- dinances no longer extant, it is interesting to notice it in a record of 120 1 as meaning the Assise of Clarendon : Nicholaus purget se per aquam, per assisam, — " Let Nicholas purge himself by [the ordeal of] water according to the Assise." Seld. Soc. Pub. 1, p. 1. This Assise (" The most important document, of the nature of law or edict, that has appeared since the Conquest," Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 469) is known to us only because Palgrave discovered it sixty years ago in a MSS. copy of Glanville in the British Museum. Pal. Com. ii 166. 3 The conception here appears to be that of putting himself on the great ordinance of the King which gave the recognitio claimed in the next words. 8 See Stat, de maqnis assises et duellis (inc. temp.) St. Realm, i. 218,
