floated he was put to death as guilty.  The other alternative, trial by battle, which had been introduced by the Normans, was extremely unpopular in England; it told hardly against men who were weak or untrained to arms, or against the man of humble birth, who was allowed against his armed opponent neither horse nor the arms of a knight, but simply a leathern jacket, a shield of leather or wood, and a stick without knots or points.

At the beginning of the reign of Henry II, the Shire courts seem to have been nearly as bad as they could be.  Scarcely any attempt had been made, perhaps none had till now been greatly needed, to improve a system which had grown up in a dim and ruder past.  The Norman kings, indeed, had introduced into England a new method of deciding doubtful questions of property by the “recognition” of sworn witness instead of by the English process of compurgation or ordeal.  Twelve men, who must be freemen and hold property, were chosen from the neighbourhood, and as “jurors” were sworn to state truly what they knew about the question in dispute, and the matter was decided according to their witness or “recognition.”  If those who were summoned were unacquainted with the facts, they were dismissed and others called; if they knew the facts but differed in their statement, others were added to their number, till twelve at least were found whose testimony agreed together.  These inquests on oath had been used by the Conqueror for fiscal purposes in the drawing up of Doomsday Book.  From that time special “writs” from king or justice were occasionally granted, by which cases were withdrawn from the usual modes of trial in the local courts, and were decided by the method of recognition, which undoubtedly provided a far better chance of justice to the suitor, replacing as it did the rude appeal to the ordeal or to battle by the sworn testimony of the chosen representatives, the good men and true, of the neighbourhood.  But the custom was not yet governed by any positive and inviolable rules, and the action of the King’s Court in this respect was imperfectly developed, uncertain, and irregular.

It is scarcely possible, indeed, to estimate the difficulties in the way of justice when Henry came to the throne.  The wretched freeholders summoned to the Shire Court from farm and cattle, from mill or anvil or carpenter’s bench, knew well the terrors of the journey through marsh and fen and forest, the dangers of flood and torrent, and perhaps of outlawed thief or murderer, the privations and hardships of the way; and the heavy fines which occur in the king’s rolls for non-attendance show how anxiously great numbers of the suitors avoided joining in the troublesome and thankless business of the court.  When they reached the place of trial a strange medley of business awaited them as questions arose of criminal jurisdiction, of feudal tenure, of English “sac and soc,” of Norman franchises and Saxon liberties, with procedure sometimes