The earliest oath that I have found prescribed by law to be
administered to jurors is in the laws of Ethelred, (about the
year 1015,) which require that the jurors "shall swear, with their
hands upon a holy thing, that they will condemn no man that is
innocent, nor acquit any that is guilty." 4 Blackstone, 302.
2 Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, 155 Wilkins' Laws of the
Anglo-Saxons, 117. Spelman's Glossary, word Jurata.
Blackstone assumes that this was the oath of the grand jury
4 Blackstone, 302); but there was but one jury at the time this
oath was ordained. The institution of two juries, grand and petit,
took place after the Norman Conquest.
Hume, speaking of the administration of justice in the time of
Alfred, says that, in every hundred,
"Twelve freeholders were chosen, who, having sworn,
together with the hundreder, or presiding magistrate of that
division, to administer impartial justice, proceeded to
the examination of that cause which was submitted to their
jurisdiction.
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