Chapter XIX: Part 19

(d) This leads to the consideration of what maybe called _disconnected analogies_. They are instructive in so far as they go back, not to any continuous development, but to the fundamental, psychological and logical unity of human nature. In similar circumstances human beings are likely to solve the same problems in the same way. Take a rather late and special case. In the Anglo-Saxon laws of Ine, a king who lived in the 7th century, it is enacted that no landowner should be allowed to claim personal labour service from his tenants unless he provides them not merely with land, but with their homesteads. Now an exactly similar rule is found in the statement of rural by-laws to be enforced on great domains in Africa, which had been taken over by the imperial fiscus--the Lex Manciana (cf. Schulten, _Lex manciana_). There is absolutely no reason for assuming a direct transference of the rule from one place to the other: it reflects considerations of natural equity which in both cases were directed against similar encroachments of powerful landowners on a dependent peasant population. In both instances government interfered to draw the line between the payment of rent and the performance of labour, and fastened on the same feature to fix the limit, namely, on the difference between peasants living in their own homes and those who had been settled by the landowner on his farms. Of such analogies, the study of savage life presents a great number, e.g. the widely spread practices of purification by ordeal (H. C. Lea, _Superstition and Force_).

(e) Organizing thought always seeks to substitute order for chaotic variety. Observations as to disconnected analogies lead to attempts to systematize them from some comprehensive point of view. These attempts may take the shape of a theory of _consecutive stages_ of development. Similar facts appear over and over again in ethnological and antiquarian evidence, because all peoples and tribes, no matter what their race and geographical position, go through the same series of social arrangements. This is the fundamental idea which directed the researches of Maine, McLennan, Morgan, Post, Kohler, although each of these scholars formulated his sequence of stages in a peculiar way. McLennan, for instance, puts the idea referred to in the following words:--

"In short, it is suggested to us, that the history of human society is
that of a development following very slowly one general law, and that
the variety of forms of life--of domestic and civil institution--is
ascribable mainly to the unequal development of the different sections
of mankind.... The first thing to be done is to inform ourselves of
the facts relating to the least developed races. To begin with them is
to begin with history at the farthest-back point of time to which,
except by argument and inference, we can reach. Their condition, as
it may to-day be observed, is truly the most ancient condition of man"
(_Studies in Ancient History_, 2nd series, 9, 15).

On this basis we might draw up tables of consecutive stages, of which the simplest may be taken from Post:--

"Four types of organization: the tribal, the territorial, the
seignorial, and the social. The first has as its basis marriage and
relationship by blood; the second, neighbouring occupation of a
district; the third, patronage relations between lord and dependants;
the fourth, social intercourse and contractual relations between
individual personalities" (Post, _Grundriss_, i. 14).

This may be supplemented from Friedrichs in regard to initial stages of family organization. He reckons four stages of this kind: promiscuity, loose relations, matriarchal family, patriarchal family, modern, bilateral family (_Z. f. vgl. R. wissenschaft_). This mode of grouping similar phenomena as a sequence of stages leads to a conception of universal history of a peculiar kind. And as such it has been realized and advocated by Kohler (see e.g. his article in Helmolt's _World's History_, Eng. trans. i.). Prompted by this conception several representatives of comparative jurisprudence have found no difficulty to insert such a peculiar institution as group-marriage into the general and obligatory course of legal evolution. It is to be noticed, however, that Kohler himself has entered a distinct protest against McLennan's and Post's view that the more rudimentary a people's culture is, the more archaic it is, and the earlier it has to be placed in the natural sequence of evolution. This would create difficulties in the case of tribes of exceedingly low culture, like the Ceylon Veddahs, who live in monogamous and patriarchal groups. According to Kohler's view, neither the mere fact of a low standard of culture, nor the fact that a certain legal custom precedes another in some cases in point of time, settles the natural sequence of development. The process of development must be studied in cases when it is sufficiently clear, gaps in other cases have to be supplied accordingly, and the working together of distinct institutions, especially in cases when there is no ethnic connexion has to be especially noticed. These are counsels of perfection, but Kohler's own example shows sufficiently that it is not easy to follow them to the letter. One thing is, however, clearly indicated by these and similar criticisms; it is, at the least, premature to sketch anything like a course of universal development for legal history. We have grave doubts whether the time will ever come for laying down any single course of that kind. The attempts made hitherto have generally led to overstating the value of certain parts of the evidence and to squeezing special traits into a supposed general course of evolution.

(f) Another group of thinkers is therefore content to systematize and explain the material from the point of view, not of universal history, but of _correspondence to economic stages and types_. This is, as we have seen, the leading idea in Dargun's or Hildebrand's investigations. It is needless to go into the question of the right or wrong of particular suggestions made by these writers. The place assigned to individualism and collectivism may be adequate or not; how far can be settled only by special inquiries. But the general trend of study initiated in this direction is certainly a promising one, if only one consideration of method is well kept in view. Investigators ought to be very chary of laying down certain combinations as the necessary outcome of certain economic situations. Such combinations or consequences certainly exist; pastoral husbandry, the life of scattered hunting groups, the conditions of agriculturists under feudal rule, certainly contain elements which will recur in divers ethnical surroundings. But we must not forget a feature which is constantly before our eyes in real life: namely, that different minds and characters will draw different and perhaps opposite conclusions in exactly similar outward conditions. This may happen in identical or similar geographical environment; let us only think of ancient Greeks and Turks on the Balkan peninsula, or of ancient Greeks and modern Greeks for that matter. But even the same _historical medium_ leaves, as a rule, scope for treatment of legal problems on divers lines. Take systems of succession. They exercise the most potent influence on the structure and life of society. Undivided succession, whether in the form of primogeniture or in that of junior right, sacrifices equity and natural affection to the economic efficiency of estates. Equal-partition rules, like _gavelkind_ or _parage_, lead in an exactly opposite direction. And yet both sets of rules coexisted among the agriculturists of feudal England; communities placed in nearly identical historical positions followed one or the other of these rules. The same may be said of types of dwelling and forms of settlement. In other words, it is not enough to start from a given economic condition as if it were bound to regulate with fatalistic precision all the incidents of legal custom and social intercourse. We have to start from actual facts as complex results of many causes, and to try to reduce as much as we can of this material to the action of economic forces in a particular stage or type of development.

(g) The psychological diversities of mankind in dealing with the same or similar problems of food and property, of procreation and marriage, of common defence and relationship, of intercourse and contrast, &c., open another possibility for the grouping of facts and the explanation of their evolution. It may be difficult or impossible to trace the reasons and causes of synthetic combinations in the history of society. That is, we can hardly go beyond noting that certain disconnected features of social life appear together and react on each other. But it is easier and more promising to approach the mass of our material from the _analytical_ side, taking hold of certain principles, or rules, or institutions, and tracing them to their natural consequences either through a direct systematization of recorded facts or, when these fail, through logical inferences. Some of the most brilliant and useful work in the historical study of law has been effected on these lines. Mommsen's theory of Roman magistracy, Jhering's theory of the struggle for right, Kohler's view of the evolution of contract, &c., have been evolved by such a process of legal analysis; and, even when such generalizations have to be curtailed or complicated later on, they serve their turn as a powerful means of organizing evidence and suggesting reasonable explanations. The attribute of "reasonableness" has to be reckoned with largely in such cases. Analytical explanations are attractive to students because they substitute logical clearness for irrational accumulation of traits and facts. They do so to a large extent through appeals to the logic and to the reason common to us and to the people we are studying. This deductive element has to be closely watched and tested from the side of a concrete study of the evidence, but it seems destined to play a very prominent part in the comparative history of law, because legal analysis and construction have at all times striven to embody logic and equity in the domain of actual interests and forces. And, as we have seen in our survey of the literature of the subject, recent comparative studies tend to make the share of juridical analysis in given relative surroundings larger and larger. What is so difficult of attainment to single workers--a harmonious appreciation of the combined influences of common origin, reception of foreign custom, recurring psychological combinations, the driving forces of economic culture and of the dialectical process of legal thought, will be achieved, it may be hoped, by the enthusiastic and brotherly exertions of all the workers in the field.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Of the principal works of reference may be mentioned:
_Zeitschrift für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft_, edited by
Bernhöft, Cohn and Kohler (1878- ); _Nouvelle revue historique de
droit français et étranger_, edited by Dareste, Esmein, Appert,
Fournier, Tardiff and Prou (1877- ); A. Pictet, _Les Origines
indo-européennes_ (i. 1859, ii. 1863); Fustel de Coulanges, _La Cité
antique_ (1890); W. E. Hearn, _The Aryan Household_ (1879); R. v.
Jhering, _Vorgeschichte der Indoeuropäer_ (1894); B. W. Leist,
_Graekoitalische Rechtsgeschichte_ (1884), _Alt-arisches Jus Gentium_
(1889), _Alt-arisches Jus Civile_ (1892-1896); Hruza, _Geschichte des
griechischen und römischen Familienrechtes_ (1893); O. Schrader,
_Urgeschichte und Sprachvergleichung_ (1890), _Reallexikon des
indo-germanischen Altertumskunde_ (1901); B. Delbrück, _Die
indo-germanischen Verwandtschaftsnamen_ (1889), _Das Mutterrecht bei
den Indogermanen_; Sir H. S. Maine, _Ancient Law_, with notes by Sir
F. Pollock (1906), _Village Communities_ (1871), _Early History of
Institutions_ (1875), _Early Law and Custom_ (1883); M. H. d'Arbois de
Jubainville, _Études de droit celtique_ (1895), _La Famille celtique_
(1905); J. J. Bachofen, _Das Mutterrecht_ (1861), _Antiquarische
Briefe_ (1880); J. F. McLennan, _Studies in Ancient History_ (1876),
_Patriarchal Theory_ (1885), _Studies in Ancient History_ (2nd series,
1896); Giraud Teulon, _Origines de la famille et du mariage_ (1884);
L. H. Morgan, "Systems of Consanguinity" in the publications of the
Smithsonian Institution, vol. xvii. (1869); _Ancient Society_ (1877);
E. B. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_ (1871); Lord Avebury (Sir J.
Lubbock), _Origin of Civilization_ (1870); J. Lippert,
_Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit_ (1887); W. Robertson Smith, _Kinship
and Marriage in Arabia_ (1885); F. Bernhöft, _Staat und Recht der
römischen Königszeit im Verhältniss zu verwandten Rechten_ (1882); A.
H. Post, _Aufgaben einer allgemeinen Rechtswissenschaft_ (1891), _Die
Anfänge des Staatsund Rechtslebens_ (1878), _Bausteine einer
allgemeinen Rechtsgeschichte auf vergleichend-ethnologischer Basis_
(1881), _Einleitung in das Studium der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz_
(1886), _Grundlagen des Rechts und Grundzüge seiner
Entwickelungsgeschichte_ (1882), _Studien zur Entwicklungsgeschichte
des Familienrechts_ (1889), _Afrikanische Jurisprudenz_ (1887),
_Grundriss der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz_ (1894); Wilken, _Das
Matriarchat im alten Arabien_ (1884); M. M. Kovalevsky, _Coutume
contemporaine et loi ancienne_ (1893), _Gesetz und Gewohnheit im
Kaukasus_ (1890), _Tableau du développement de la famille et de la
propriété_ (1889); Dargun, "Mutterrecht und Raubehe," in Otto Gierke's
_Untersuchungen zur deutschen Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte_ (1883); R.
Hildebrand, _Das Problem einer allgemeinen Entwicklungsgeschichte des
Rechts und der Sitte_ (1894), _Recht und Sitte auf den verschiedenen
wirtschaftlichen Kulturstufen_ (1896); E. Grosse, _Die Formen der
Familie und der Wirtschaft_ (1896); E. A. Westermarck, _History of
Human Marriage_ (1894), _The Origin and Development of the Moral
Ideas_ (1906); C. N. Starcke, _Die primitive Familie_ (1888); G.
Tarde, _Les Transformations du droit_ (2nd ed., 1894); Steinmetz,
_Ethnologische Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe_ (1894); J.
Kohler, _Das Recht als Kulturerscheinung: Einleitung in die
vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft_ (1885), _Shakespeare vor dem Forum
der Jurisprudenz_ (1884), "Das chinesische Strafrecht," _Beitrag zur
Universalgeschichte des Strafrechts_ (1886), _Rechtsvergleichende
Studien über islamitisches Recht, Recht der Berbern, chinesisches
Recht und Recht auf Ceylon_ (1889), _Altindisches Prozessrecht_
(1892), _Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe_ (1897), _Kulturrechte des Alten
Amerikas, das Recht der Azteken_ (1892), _Das Negerrecht_ (1895);
Kohler and Peisker, _Aus dem babylonischen Rechtsleben_ (1890),
_Hammurubi's Gesetz_ (1904); A. Lang, _The Secret of the Totem_
(1905); P. J. H. Grierson, _The Silent Trade_ (1903); J. G. Frazer,
_Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship_ (1905); R. Dareste,
_Études d'histoire de droit_ (1889), _Nouvelles études d'histoire de
droit_ (1896); Lambert, _La Fonction du droit civil comparé_ (1903);
Fritz Hommel, _Semitische Alterthumskunde_ (Eng. trans., _The Ancient
Hebrew Tradition as illustrated by the Monuments_, 1897); H. C. Lea,
_Superstition and Force_ (1866); A. Hellwig, _Das Asylrecht der
Naturvölker_ (Berliner juristische Beiträge, 1893); F. Seebohm,
_Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law_ (1902). (P. Vi.)

JURJANI, the name of two Arabic scholars.

1. ABU BAKR 'ABDU-L-QAHIR IBN 'ABDUR-RAHMAN UL-JURJANI (d. 1078,) Arabian grammarian, belonged to the Persian school and wrote a famous grammar, the _Kitab ul-'Awamil ul-Mi'a or Kitab Mi'at 'Amil_, which was edited by Erpenius (Leiden, 1617), by Baillie (Calcutta, 1803), and by A. Lockett (Calcutta, 1814). Ten Arabic commentaries on this work exist in MS., also two Turkish. It has been versified five times and translated into Persian. Another of his grammatical works on which several commentaries have been written is the _Kitab Jumal fin-Nahw_.

For other works see C. Brockelmann's _Gesch. der Arabischen
Litteratur_ (1898), i. 288.

2. 'ALI IBN MAHOMMED UL-JURJANI (1339-1414), Arabian encyclopaedic writer, was born near Astarabad and became professor in Shiraz. When this city was plundered by Timur (1387) he removed to Samarkand, but returned to Shiraz in 1405, and remained there until his death. Of his thirty-one extant works, many being commentaries on other works, one of the best known is the _Ta'rifat_ (_Definitions_), which was edited by G. Flügel (Leipzig, 1845), published also in Constantinople (1837), Cairo (1866, &c.), and St Petersburg (1897). (G. W. T.)

JURY, in English law, a body of laymen summoned and sworn (_jurati_) to ascertain, under the guidance of a judge, the truth as to questions of fact raised in legal proceedings whether civil or criminal. The development of the system of trial by jury has been regarded as one of the greatest achievements of English jurisprudence; it has even been said that the ultimate aim of the English constitution is "to get twelve good men into a box."[1] In modern times the English system of trial by jury has been adopted in many countries in which jury trial was not native or had been strangled or imperfectly developed under local conditions.

The origin of the system in England has been much investigated by lawyers and historians. The result of these investigations is a fairly general agreement that the germ of jury trial is to be found in the Frankish inquest (_recognitio_ or _inquisitio_) transplanted into England by the Norman kings. The essence of this inquest was the summoning of a body of neighbours by a public officer to give answer upon oath (_recognoscere veritatem_) on some question of fact or law (_jus_), or of mixed fact and law. At the outset the object of the inquiry was usually to obtain information for the king, e.g. to ascertain facts needed for assessing taxation. Indeed Domesday Book appears to be made up by recording the answers of inquests.

The origin of juries is very fully discussed in W. Forsyth's _History of Trial by Jury_ (1852), and the various theories advanced are more concisely stated in W. Stubbs's _Constitutional History_ (vol. i.) and in E. A. Freeman's _Norman Conquest_ (vol. v.). Until the modern examination of historical documents proved the contrary, the jury system, like all other institutions, was popularly regarded as the work of a single legislator, and in England it has been usually assigned to Alfred the Great. This supposition is without historical foundation, nor is it correct to regard the jury as "copied from this or that kindred institution to be found in this or that German or Scandinavian land," or brought over ready made by Hengist or by William.[2] "Many writers of authority," says Stubbs, "have maintained that the entire jury system is indigenous in England, some deriving it from Celtic tradition based on the principles of Roman law, and adopted by the Anglo-Saxons and Normans from the people they had conquered. Others have regarded it as a product of that legal genius of the Anglo-Saxons of which Alfred is the mythical impersonation, or as derived by that nation from the customs of primitive Germany or from their intercourse with the Danes. Nor even when it is admitted that the system of 'recognition' was introduced from Normandy have legal writers agreed as to the source from which the Normans themselves derived it. One scholar maintains that it was brought by the Norsemen from Scandinavia; another that it was derived from the processes of the canon law; another that it was developed on Gallic soil from Roman principles; another that it came from Asia through the crusades," or was borrowed by the Angles and Saxons from their Slavonic neighbours in northern Europe. The true answer is that forms of trial resembling the jury system in various particulars are to be found in the primitive institutions of all nations. That which comes nearest in time and character to trial by jury is the system of recognition by sworn inquest, introduced into England by the Normans. "That inquest," says Stubbs, "is directly derived from the Frank capitularies, into which it may have been adopted from the fiscal regulations of the Theodosian code, and thus own some distant relationship with the Roman jurisprudence." However that may be, the system of "recognition" consisted in questions of fact, relating to fiscal or judicial business, being submitted by the officers of the crown to sworn witnesses in the local courts. Freeman points out that the Norman rulers of England were obliged, more than native rulers would have been, to rely on this system for accurate information. They needed to have a clear and truthful account of disputed points set before them, and such an account was sought for in the oaths of the recognitors.[3] The Norman conquest, therefore, fostered the growth of those native germs common to England with other countries out of which the institution of juries grew. Recognition, as introduced by the Normans, is only, in this point of view, another form of the same principle which shows itself in the compurgators, in the _frith-borh_ (frank-pledge), in every detail of the action of the popular courts before the conquest. Admitting with Stubbs that the Norman recognition was the instrument which the lawyers in England ultimately shaped into trial by jury, Freeman maintains none the less that the latter is distinctively English. Forsyth comes to substantially the same conclusion. Noting the jury germs of the Anglo-Saxon period, he shows how out of those elements, which continued in full force under the Anglo-Normans, was produced at last the institution of the jury. "As yet it was only implied in the requirement that disputed questions should be determined by the voice of sworn witnesses taken from the neighbourhood, and deposing to the truth of what they had seen or heard." The conclusions of Sir F. Pollock and F.W. Maitland, expressed in their _History of English Law_, and based on a closer study, are to the same effect.

This inquest then was a royal institution and not a survival from Anglo-Saxon law or popular custom, under which compurgation and the ordeal were the accepted modes of trying issues of fact.

The inquest by recognition, formerly an inquest of office, i.e. to ascertain facts in the interests of the crown or the exchequer, was gradually allowed between subjects as a mode of settling disputes of fact. This extension began with the assize of novel disseisin, whereby the king protected by royal writ and inquest of neighbours every seisin of a freehold. This was followed by the grand assize, applicable to questions affecting freehold or status. A defendant in such an action was enabled by an enactment of Henry II. to decline trial by combat and choose trial by assize, which was conducted as follows. The sheriff summoned four knights of the neighbourhood, who being sworn chose the twelve lawful knights most cognisant of the facts, to determine on their oaths which had the better right to the land. If they all knew the facts and were agreed as to their verdict, well and good; if some or all were ignorant, the fact was certified in court, and new knights were named, until twelve were found to be agreed. The same course was followed when the twelve were not unanimous. New knights were added until the twelve were agreed. This was called afforcing the assize. At this time the knowledge on which the jurors acted was their own personal knowledge, acquired independently of the trial. "So entirely," says Forsyth, "did they proceed upon their own previously formed view of the facts in dispute that they seem to have considered themselves at liberty to pay no attention to evidence offered in court, however clearly it might disprove the case which they were prepared to support." The use of recognition is prescribed by the constitutions of Clarendon (1166) for cases of dispute as to lay or clerical tenure. See Forsyth, p. 131; Stubbs, i. 617.

This procedure by the assize was confined to real actions, and while it preceded, it is not identical with the modern jury trial in civil cases, which was gradually introduced by consent of the parties and on pressure from the judges. Jury trial proper differs from the grand and petty assizes in that the assizes were summoned at the same time as the defendant to answer a question formulated in the writ; whereas in the ordinary jury trial no order for a jury could be made till the parties by their pleadings had come to an issue of fact and had put themselves on the country, _posuerunt se super patriam_ (Pollock and Maitland, i. 119-128; ii. 601, 615, 621).

_The Grand Jury._--In Anglo-Saxon times there was an institution analogous to the grand jury in criminal cases, viz. the twelve senior thegns, who, according to an ordinance of Æthelred II., were sworn in the county court that they would accuse no innocent man and acquit no guilty one. The twelve thegns were a jury of presentment or accusation, like the grand jury of later times, and the absolute guilt or innocence of those accused by them had to be determined by subsequent proceedings--by compurgation or ordeal. Whether this is the actual origin of the grand jury or not, the assizes of Clarendon (1166) and Northampton (1176) establish the criminal jury on a definite basis.

In the laws of Edward the Confessor and the earlier Anglo-Saxon kings are found many traces of a public duty to bring offenders to justice, by hue and cry, or by action of the _frith-borh_, township, tithing or hundred. By the assize of Clarendon it is directed that inquiry be made in each county and in each hundred by twelve lawful (_legaliores_) men of the hundred, and by four lawful men from each of the four vills nearest to the scene of the alleged crime, on oath to tell the truth if in the hundred or vill there is any man accused (_rettatus aut publicatus_) as a robber or murderer or thief, or receiver of such. The assize of Northampton added forgery of coin or charters (_falsonaria_) and arson. The inquiry is to be held by the justices in eyre, and by the sheriffs in their county courts. On a finding on the oath aforesaid, the accused was to be taken and to go to the ordeal. By the articles of visitation of 1194, four knights are to be chosen from the county who by their oath shall choose two lawful knights of each hundred or wapentake, or, if knights be wanting, free and legal men, so that the twelve may answer for all matters within the hundred, including, says Stubbs, "all the pleas of the crown, the trial of malefactors and their receivers, as well as a vast amount of civil business." The process thus described is now regarded as an employment of the Frankish inquest for the collection of _fama publica_. It was alternative to the rights of a private accuser by appeal, and the inquest were not exactly either accusers or witnesses, but gave voice to public repute as to the criminality of the persons whom they presented. From this form of inquest has developed the grand jury of presentment or accusation, and the coroner's inquest, which works partly as a grand jury as to homicide cases, and partly as an inquest of office as to treasure trove, &c.

The number of the grand jury is fixed by usage at not less than twelve nor more than twenty-three jurors. Unanimity is not required, but twelve must concur in the presentment or indictment.[4] This jury retains so much of its ancient character that it may present of its own knowledge or information, and is not tied down by rules of evidence. After a general charge by the judge as to the bills of indictment on the file of the court, the grand jury considers the bills in private and hears upon oath in the grand jury chamber some or all the witnesses called in support of an indictment whose names are endorsed upon the bill. It does not as a rule hear counsel or solicitors for the prosecution, nor does it see or hear the accused or his witnesses, and it is not concerned with the nature of the defence, its functions being to ascertain whether there is a prima facie case against the accused justifying his trial. If it thinks that there is such a case, the indictment is returned into court as a true bill; if it thinks that there is not, the bill is ignored and returned into court torn up or marked "no bill," or "_ignoramus_." Inasmuch as no man can be put on trial for treason or felony, and few are tried for misdemeanour, without the intervention of the grand jury, the latter has a kind of veto with respect to criminal prosecutions. The grand jurors are described in the indictment as "the jurors for our lord the king." As such prosecutions in respect of indictable offences are now in almost all cases begun by a full preliminary inquiry before justices, and inasmuch as cases rarely come before a grand jury until after committal of the accused for trial, the present utility of the grand jury depends very much on the character of the justices' courts. As a review of the discretion of stipendiary magistrates in committing cases for trial, the intervention of the grand jury is in most cases superfluous; and even when the committing justices are not lawyers, it is now a common opinion that their views as to the existence of a case to be submitted to a jury for trial should not be over-ridden by a lay tribunal sitting in private, and in this opinion many grand jurors concur. But the abolition of the grand jury would involve great changes in criminal procedure for which parliament seems to have no appetite. Forsyth thinks that the grand jury will often baffle "the attempts of malevolence" by ignoring a malicious and unfounded prosecution; but it may also defeat the ends of justice by shielding a criminal with whom it has strong political or social sympathies. The qualification of the grand jurymen is that they should be freeholders of the county--to what amount appears to be uncertain--and they are summoned by the sheriff, or failing him by the coroner.

The _coroner's jury_ must by statute (1887) consist of not more than twenty-three nor less than twelve jurors. It is summoned by the coroner to hold an inquest _super visum corporis_ in cases of sudden or violent death, and of death in prisons or lunatic asylums, and to deal with treasure trove. The qualification of the coroner's jurors does not depend on the Juries Acts 1825 and 1870, and in practice they are drawn from householders in the immediate vicinity of the place where the inquest is held. Unanimity is not required of a coroner's jury; but twelve must concur in the verdict. If it charges anyone with murder or manslaughter, it is duly recorded and transmitted to a court of assize, and has the same effect as an indictment by a grand jury, i.e. it is accusatory only and is not conclusive, and is traversable, and the issue of guilt or innocence is tried by a petty jury.

_The Petty Jury._--The ordeal by water or fire was used as the final test of guilt or innocence until its abolition by decree of the Lateran council (1219). On its abolition it became necessary to devise a new mode of determining guilt as distinguished from ill fame as charged by the grand jury. So early as 1221 accused persons had begun to put themselves on the country, or to pay to have a verdict for "good or ill"; and the trial seems to have been by calling for the opinions of the twelve men and the four townships, who may have been regarded as a second body of witnesses who could traverse the opinion of the hundred jury. (See Pollock and Maitland, ii. 646.) The reference to _judicium parium_ in Magna Carta is usually taken to refer to the jury, but it is clear that what is now known as the petty jury was not then developed in its present form. "The history of that institution is still in manuscript," says Maitland.

It is not at all clear that at the outset the trial by the country (_in pais_; _in patria_) was before another and different jury. The earliest instances look as if the twelve men and the four vills were the _patria_ and had to agree. But by the time of Edward I. the accused seems to have been allowed to call in a second jury. A person accused by the inquest of the hundred was allowed to have the truth of the charge tried by another and different jury.[5] "There is," says Forsyth, "no possibility of assigning a date to this alteration." "In the time of Bracton (middle of the 13th century) the usual mode of determining innocence or guilt was by combat or appeal. But in most cases the appellant had the option of either fighting with his adversary or putting himself on his country for trial"--the exceptions being murder by secret poisoning, and certain circumstances presumed by the law to be conclusive of guilt.[6] But the separation must have been complete by 1352, in which year it was enacted "that no indictor shall be put in inquests upon deliverance of the indictees of felonies or trespass if he be challenged for that same cause by the indictee."

The jurors, whatever their origin, differed from the Saxon doomsmen and the jurats of the Channel Islands in that they adjudged nothing; and from compurgators or oath-helpers in that they were not witnesses called by a litigant to support his case (Pollock and Maitland, i. 118). Once established, the jury of trial whether of actions or indictments developed on the same lines. But at the outset this jury differed in one material respect from the modern trial jury. The ancient trial jury certify to the truth from their knowledge of the facts, however acquired. In other words, they resemble witnesses or collectors of local evidence or gossip rather than jurors. The complete withdrawal of the witness character from the jury is connected by Forsyth with the ancient rules of law as to proof of written instruments, and a peculiar mode of trial _per sectam_. When a deed is attested by witnesses, you have a difference between the testimony of the witness, who deposes to the execution of the deed, and the verdict of the jury as to the fact of execution. It has been contended with much plausibility that in such cases the attesting witnesses formed part of the jury. Forsyth doubts that conclusion, although he admits that, as the jurors themselves were originally mere witnesses, there was no distinction in principle between them and the attesting witnesses, and that the attesting witnesses might be associated with the jury in the discharge of the function of giving a verdict. However that may be, in the reign of Edward III., although the witnesses are spoken of "as joined to the assize," they are distinguished from the jurors. The trial _per sectam_ was used as an alternative to the assize or jury, and resembled in principle the system of compurgation. The claimant proved his case by vouching a certain number of witnesses (_secta_), who had seen the transaction in question, and the defendant rebutted the presumption thus created by vouching a larger number of witnesses on his own side. In cases in which this was allowed, the jury did not interpose at all, but in course of time the practice arose of the witnesses of the _secta_ telling their story to the jury. In these two instances we have the jury as judges of the facts sharply contrasted with the witnesses who testify to the facts; and, with the increasing use of juries and the development of rules of evidence, this was gradually established as the true principle of the system. In the reign of Henry IV. we find the judges declaring that the jury after they have been sworn should not see or take with them any other evidence than that which has been offered in open court. But the personal knowledge of the jurors was not as yet regarded as outside the evidence on which they might found a verdict, and the stress laid upon the selection of jurymen from the neighbourhood of the cause of the action shows that this element was counted on, and, in fact, deemed essential to a just consideration of the case. Other examples of the same theory of the duties of the jury may be found in the language used by legal writers. Thus it has been said that the jury may return a verdict although no evidence at all be offered, and again, that the evidence given in court is not binding on the jury, because they are assumed from their local connexion to be sufficiently informed of the facts to give a verdict without or in opposition to the oral evidence. A recorder of London, _temp._ Edward VI., says that, "if the witnesses at a trial do not agree with the jurors, the verdict of the twelve shall be taken and the witnesses shall be rejected." Forsyth suggests as a reason for the continuance of this theory that it allowed the jury an escape from the _attaint_, by which penalties might be imposed on them for delivering a false verdict in a civil case. They could suggest that the verdict was according to the fact, though not according to the evidence.

In England the trial jury (also called petty jury or traverse jury) consists of twelve jurors, except in the county court, where the number is eight. In civil but not in criminal cases the trial may by consent be by fewer than twelve jurors, and the verdict may by consent be that of the majority. The rule requiring a unanimous verdict has been variously explained. Forsyth regards the rule as intimately connected with the original character of the jury as a body of witnesses, and with the conception common in primitive society that safety is to be found in the number of witnesses, rather than the character of their testimony. The old notion seems to have been that to justify an accusation, or to find a fact, twelve sworn men must be agreed. The afforcing of the jury, already described, marks an intermediate stage in the development. Where the juries were not unanimous new jurors were added until twelve were found to be of the same opinion. From the unanimous twelve selected out of a large number to the unanimous twelve constituting the whole jury was a natural step, which, however, was not taken without hesitation. In some old cases the verdict of eleven jurors out of twelve was accepted, but it was decided in the reign of Edward III. that the verdict must be the unanimous opinion of the whole jury. Diversity of opinion was taken to imply perversity of judgment, and the law sanctioned the application of the harshest methods to produce unanimity. The jurors while considering their verdict were not allowed a fire nor any refreshment, and it is said in some of the old books that, if they failed to agree, they could be put in a cart and drawn after the justices to the border of the county, and then upset into a ditch. These rude modes of enforcing unanimity has been softened in later practice, but in criminal cases the rule of unanimity is still absolutely fixed.

In civil cases and in trials for misdemeanour, the jurors are allowed to separate during adjournments and to return to their homes; in trials for treason, treason-felony and murder, the jurors, once sworn, must not separate until discharged. But by an act of 1897 jurors on trials for other felonies may be allowed by the court to separate in the same way as on trials for misdemeanour.

These rules do not apply to a jury which has retired to consider its verdict. During the period of retirement it is under the keeping of an officer of the court.

At common law aliens were entitled to be tried by a jury _de medietate linguae_--half Englishmen, half foreigners, not necessarily compatriots of the accused. This privilege was abolished by the Naturalization Act 1870; but by the Juries Act 1870 aliens who have been domiciled in England or Wales for ten years or upwards, if in other respects duly qualified, are liable to jury service as if they were natural-born subjects (s. 8).

A jury of matrons is occasionally summoned, viz. on a writ _de ventre inspiciendo_, or where a female condemned to death pleads pregnancy in stay of execution.

The jurors are selected from the inhabitants of the county, borough or other area for which the court to which they are summoned is commissioned to act. In criminal cases, owing to the rules as to venue and that crime is to be tried in the neighbourhood where it is committed, the mode of selection involves a certain amount of independent local knowledge on the part of the jurors. Where local prejudice has been aroused for or against the accused, which is likely to affect the chance of a fair trial, the proceedings may be removed to another jurisdiction, and there are a good many offences in which by legislation the accused may be tried where he is caught, irrespective of the place where he is alleged to have broken the law. As regards civil cases, a distinction was at an early date drawn between local actions which must be tried in the district in which they originated, and transitory actions which could be tried in any county. These distinctions are now of no importance, as the place of trial of a civil action is decided as a matter of procedure and convenience, and regard is not necessarily paid to the place at which a wrong was done or a contract broken.

The qualifications for, and exemptions from, service as a petty juror are in the main contained in the Juries Acts 1825 and 1870, though a number of further exemptions are added by scattered enactments. The exemptions include members of the legislature and judges, ministers of various denominations, and practising barristers and solicitors, registered medical practitioners and dentists, and officers and soldiers of the regular army. Persons over sixty are exempt but not disqualified. Lists of the jurors are prepared by the overseers in rural parishes and by the town clerks in boroughs, and are submitted to justices for revision. When jurors are required for a civil or criminal trial they are summoned by the sheriff or, if he cannot act, by the coroner.

_Special and Common Juries._--For the purpose of civil trials in the superior courts there are two lists of jurors, special and common. The practice of selecting special jurors to try important civil cases appears to have sprung up, without legislative enactment, in the procedure of the courts. Forsyth says that the first statutory recognition of it is so late as 3 Geo. II. c. 25, and that in the oldest book of practice in existence (Powell's _Attourney's Academy_, 1623) there is no allusion to two classes of jurymen. The acts, however, which regulate the practice allude to it as well established. The Juries Act 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 77) defines the class of persons entitled and liable to serve on special juries thus: Every man whose name shall be on the jurors' book for any county, &c., and who shall be legally entitled to be called an esquire, or shall be a person of higher degree, or a banker or merchant, or who shall occupy a house of a certain rateable value (e.g. £100 in a town of 20,000 inhabitants, £50 elsewhere), or a farm of £300 or other premises at £100. A special juryman receives a fee of a guinea for each cause. Either party may obtain an order for a special jury, but must pay the additional expenses created thereby unless the judge certifies that it was a proper case to be so tried. For the common jury any man is qualified and liable to serve who has £10 by the year in land or tenements of freehold, copyhold or customary tenure; or £20 on lands or tenement held by lease for twenty-one years or longer, or who being a householder is rated at £30 in the counties of London and Middlesex, or £20 in any other county. A special jury cannot be ordered in cases of treason or felony, and may be ordered in cases of misdemeanour only when the trial is in the king's bench division of the High Court, or the civil side at assizes.

_Challenge._--It has always been permissible for the parties to challenge the jurors summoned to consider indictments or to try cases. Both in civil and criminal cases a challenge "for cause" is allowed; in criminal cases a peremptory challenge is also allowed. Challenge "for cause" may be either to the _array_, i.e. to the whole number of jurors returned, or to the _polls_, i.e. to the jurors individually. A challenge to the array is either a _principal_ challenge (on the ground that the sheriff is a party to the cause, or related to one of the parties), or a challenge for _favour_ (on the ground of circumstances implying "at least a probability of bias or favour in the sheriff"). A challenge to the polls is an exception to one or more jurymen on either of the following grounds: (1) _propter honoris respectum_, as when a lord of parliament is summoned; (2) _propter defectum_, for want of qualification; (3) _propter affectum_, on suspicion of bias or partiality; and (4) _propter delictum_, when the juror has been convicted of an infamous offence. The challenge _propter affectum_ is, like the challenge to the array, either principal challenge or "to the favour." In England as a general rule the juror may be interrogated to show want of qualification; but in other cases the person making the challenge must prove it without questioning the juror, and the courts do not allow the protracted examination on the _voir dire_ which precedes every _cause célèbre_ in the United States. On indictments for treason the accused has a right peremptorily to challenge thirty-five of the jurors on the panel; in cases of felony the number is limited to twenty, and in cases of misdemeanour there is no right of peremptory challenge. The Crown has not now the right of peremptory challenge and may challenge only for cause certain (Juries Act 1825, s. 29). In the case of felony, on the first call of the list jurors objected to by the Crown are asked to stand by, and the cause of challenge need not be assigned by the Crown until the whole list has been perused or gone through, or unless there remain no longer twelve jurors left to try the case, exclusive of those challenged. This arrangement practically amounts to giving the Crown the benefit of a peremptory challenge.

_Function of Jury._--The jurors were originally the mouthpiece of local opinion on the questions submitted to them, or witnesses to fact as to such questions. They have now become the judges of fact upon the evidence laid before them. Their province is strictly limited to questions of fact, and within that province they are still further restricted to matters proved by evidence in the course of the trial and in theory must not act upon their own personal knowledge and observation except so far as it proceeds from what is called a "view" of the subject matter of the litigation. Indeed it is now well established that if a juror is acquainted with facts material to the case, he should inform the court so that he may be dismissed from the jury and called as a witness; and Lord Ellenborough ruled that a judge would misdirect the jury if he told them that they might reject the evidence and go by their own knowledge. The old _decantatum_ assigns to judge and jury their own independent functions: _Ad quaestionem legis respondent judices: ad quaestionem facti juratores_ (Plowden, 114). But the independence of the jurors as to matters of fact was from an early time not absolute. In certain civil cases a litigant dissatisfied by the verdict could adopt the procedure by attaint, and if the attaint jury of twenty-four found that the first jury had given a false verdict, they were fined and suffered the villainous judgment. Attaints fell into disuse on the introduction about 1665 of the practice of granting new trials when the jury found against the weight of the evidence, or upon a wrong direction as to the law of the case.

In criminal cases the courts attempted to control the verdicts by fining the jurors for returning a verdict _contra plenam et manifestam evidentiam_. But this practice was declared illegal in Bushell's case (1670); and so far as criminal cases are concerned the independence of the jury as sole judges of fact is almost absolute. If they acquit, their action cannot be reviewed nor punished, except on proof of wilful and corrupt consent to "embracery" (Juries Act 1825, s. 61). If they convict no new trial can be ordered except in the rare instances of misdemeanours tried as civil cases in the High Court. In trials for various forms of libel during the 18th century, the judges restricted the powers of juries by ruling that their function was limited to finding whether the libel had in fact been published, and that it was for the court to decide whether the words published constituted an offence.[7] By Fox's Libel Act 1792 the jurors in such cases were expressly empowered to bring in a general verdict of libel or no libel, i.e. to deal with the whole question of the meaning and extent of the incriminated publication. In other words, they were given the same independence in cases of libel as in other criminal cases. This independence has in times of public excitement operated as a kind of local option against the existing law and as an aid to procuring its amendment. Juries in Ireland in agrarian cases often acquit in the teeth of the evidence. In England the independence of the jury in criminal trials is to some extent menaced by the provisions of the Criminal Appeal Act 1907.

While the jury is in legal theory absolute as to matters of fact, it is in practice largely controlled by the judges. Not only does the judge at the trial decide as to the relevancy of the evidence tendered to the issues to be proved, and as to the admissibility of questions put to a witness, but he also advises the jury as to the logical bearing of the evidence admitted upon the matters to be found by the jury. The rules as to admissibility of evidence, largely based upon scholastic logic, sometimes difficult to apply, and almost unknown in continental jurisprudence, coupled with the right of an English judge to sum up the evidence (denied to French judges) and to express his own opinion as to its value (denied to American judges), fetter to some extent the independence or limit the chances of error of the jury.

"The whole theory of the jurisdiction of the courts to interfere with the verdict of the constitutional tribunal is that the court is satisfied that the jury have not acted reasonably upon the evidence but have been misled by prejudice or passion" (_Watt_ v. _Watt_ (1905), App. Cas. 118, per Lord Halsbury). In civil cases the verdict may be challenged on the ground that it is against the evidence or against the weight of the evidence, or unsupported by any evidence. It is said to be against the evidence when the jury have completely misapprehended the facts proved and have drawn an inference so wrong as to be in substance perverse. The dissatisfaction of the trial judge with the verdict is a potent but not conclusive element in determining as to the perversity of a verdict, because of his special opportunity of appreciating the evidence and the demeanour of the witnesses. But his opinion is less regarded now that new trials are granted by the court of appeal than under the old system when the new trial was sought in the court of which he was a member.