138 History of the English Landed Interest. 



thirteenth century the sovereign's administration of justice 

 does not compare at all favourably with that of the private 

 individual. Ten or more years often intervened between the 

 visits of the Justices in Eyre. Kings issued their writs of 

 assize at prolonged and irregular intervals, so that the business 

 of many years ^vould have to be transacted in as many days. 

 It was a busy time in the district, when the assize town was 

 crowded with sheriff, coroners, bands of jurors from various 

 townships, presidents of numerous bailiwicks, lords temporal 

 and spiritual of franchises, knights and freeholders of the 

 county, litigants and their pledges and attorneys. The entry 

 of the dreaded Justices in Eyre was little short of a state 

 pageant. The meeting between them and the great landed 

 proprietors of franchises was exceedingly impressive. The 

 dignified pleading of the former for their liberties, and the 

 solemn granting of such by the latter, awed the crowd of 

 common people and inspired it with a reverence for landed 

 rights. The loyal oratory of the principal judge, the formali- 

 ties surrounding the delivery of the articles of the Eyre, and 

 the presentments of the jurors thereon, the infliction of fines, 

 pains, and penalties, according to the custom of the country,^ 

 and the dread sentence of death, all helped to engender a 

 wholesome respect for the law in the vulgar mind. 



But when the business and ceremony was over, and the 

 judges had gone elsewhere, it is very doubtful if there were 

 fewer innocent persons left behind by them in prison, or fewer 

 guilty persons at large, than after some lord of a franchise had 

 exercised his powers of sac and soc in the seignorial court of 

 his property. The royal judges had each his special clerk, 

 who filled in his special strips of parchment with the minutes 

 of every day's proceedings. Since each set of parchments was 

 stitched together and sent up to the Exchequer for preserva- 

 tion, there are plenty of Assize E,oll& available for modern 

 research. The coriiiption and extortion that these old MSS, 

 bring to light, speak ill for the chances of those prisoners who 

 were too poor to buy their freedom. The judge of the seig- 



* Page, Article on Tlirce, Assizes in the County of Koi'thitmherland , 

 Surtees Societj', 1891. 



