70 ENFORCEMENT OF THE STATUTES OF LABOURERS 



nulla aijinitate attingant ad faciendum recognicio7i('m 

 illam.'^ They are chosen, proven and sworn and charged 

 to give their verdict, at a time appointed for them.' 



I noted one instance where a trial jury after the per- 

 formance of its duties is then charged to make inquiries 

 as to offences against the statute, i. e. to act as a jury of 

 presentment and to make its report at a given time ; ^ 

 but in general there is, in these rolls, a sharp line drawn 

 between the two forms of juries."* 



In addition to the method of presentments, there are 

 far less frequent examples of suits brought by individual 

 plaintiffs against defendants who had infringed various 

 clauses of the statutes ; ^ the form of such actions as are 

 recorded on these particular rolls follows closely the form 

 of similar actions in the central courts ; in those that 

 have come to my notice issue is taken on a question of 

 fact and a trial jury summoned. 



There are, rather to my surprise, some instances where 

 the accused are acquitted by the jury, but it must be con- 

 fessed that such instances are comparatively few ; ^ if they 



'176-177. '154, and 179. 



^"Ad inquirendum .... et ad reddendum veredictum suum ; " 

 177. Cf. Pollock and Maitland, op. cit., ii, 645: "We are right in say- 

 ing 'verdicts.' The answers to the articles are often called veredicta." 



*The indicting jury had in the past acted as trial jury but at just this 

 date a statute put a check to the practice in felony and trespass (25 

 Edw. Ill, St., 5, c. 3, Statutes). "A great deal yet remained to be done 

 before that process of indictment by a ' grand jury ' and trial by a 

 'petty jury ' with which we are all familiar would have been established. 

 The details of this process will never be known until large piles of re- 

 cords have been systematically perused. This task we must leave for the 

 historian of the fourteenth century." Pollock and Maitland, op.cit., ii, 

 649. 



'^ 156-157; 185-186. 



^152; 154. One is reminded of Wyclif, 234, Of Servants and Lords: 

 " lordis wolen not mekely here a pore mannus cause & helpe hym in 

 his right, but sufifre sisouris of countre to distroie hem but rathere 

 wytholden pore men here hire." Quoted by Trevelyan, Wyclijfe, 2iy. 



