The methods
by which they were broken were two-fold. First, by granting
commissions to the sheriffs by writ of JUSTICIES, whereby the
sheriff had a particular jurisdiction granted him to be judge of
a particular cause, independent of the suitors of the county
court," (that is, without a jury;) "and these commissions were
after the Norman form, by which (according to which) all power of
judicature was immediately derived from the king." Gilbert on
the Court of Chancery, p. l.
The several authorities now given show that it was the custom of
the Norman kings, not only to appoint persons to sit as judges in
jury trials, in criminal cases, but that they also commissioned
individuals to sit in singular and particular eases, as occasion
required; and that they therefore readily could, and naturally
would, and therefore undoubtedly did, commission individuals
with a special view to their adaptation or capacity to procure such
judgments as the kings desired.
The extract from Gilbert suggests also the usurpation of the
Norman kings, in their assumption that they, (and not the people,
as by the common law,) were the fountains of justice.
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