" Mirror of Justices, 50 51.
In the section "Of the Sheriff's Turns," it is said:
"The sheriff's by ancient ordinances hold several meetings twice
in the year in every hundred; where all the freeholders within the
hundred are bound to appear for the service of their fees."
Mirror of Justices, 50.
The following statute was passed by Edward I., seventy years after
Magna Carta:
"Forasmuch also as sheriffs, hundreders, and bailiffs of
liberties, have used to grieve those which be placed under them,
putting in assizes and juries men diseased and decrepit, and
having continual or sudden disease; and men also that dwelled not
in the country at the time of the summons; and summon also an
unreasonable number of jurors, for to extort money from some of
them, for letting them go in peace, and so the assizes and juries
pass many times by poor men, and the rich abide at home by
reason of their bribes; it is ordained that from henceforth in one
assize no more shall be summoned than four and twenty; and
old men above three score and ten years, being continually sick,
or being diseased at the time of the summons, or not dwelling in
that country, shall not be put in juries of petit assizes.
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