" St. 13
Edward I., ch. 38. (1285.)
Although this command to the sheriff's and other officers, not to
summon, as jurors, those who, from age and disease, were
physically incapable of performing the duties, may not, of itself,
afford any absolute or legal implication, by which we can
determine precisely who were, and who were not, eligible as jurors
at common law, yet the exceptions here made nevertheless carry a
seeming confession with them that, at common law, all male
adults were eligible as jurors.
But the main principle of the feudal system itself, shows that all
the full and free adult male members of the state that is, all
who were free born, and had not lost their civil rights by crime,
or otherwise must, at common law, have been eligible as jurors.
What was that principle? It was, that the state rested for support
upon the land, and not upon taxation levied upon the people
personally. The lands of the country were considered the property
of the state, and were made to support the state in this way: A
portion of them was set apart to the king, the rents of which went
to pay his personal and official expenditures, not including the
maintenance of armies, or the administration of justice.
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