King s Peace and Ejig/ish Peace-Magistracy. 37 



after magna charta, it, as well as other local tribunals, lost 

 the right to try pleas of the crown, in favor of the plenus 

 coviitatiis or full county court assembled before the king's 

 justices. 1 



But all these various means for securing order were entirely 

 inadequate. No court competent to punish offences was 

 held save at long intervals. The view of frankpledge became 

 burdensome. Complaints that the peace was not kept were 

 incessant ; and even in the days of Edward I the Statute of 

 Winchester discloses a deplorable state of social disorder.^ 

 There was need, in short, of a local and permanent peace- 

 magistracy, with power to try and punish, and whose tribunals 

 should be always open. And now begins an interesting 

 series of experiments in the creation of special " commissions." 



{b). — Milites Assignati, Conservatores, et Cnstodes Pads? 



In 1 195, under Richard I, a proclamation was issued which 

 marks an epoch in the history of the justice of the peace. 

 All persons above the age of fifteen were required to swear 

 " according to the old law of Canute, not to be thieves or 



"^ Magna Charta, c. 24: Thompson, Magna Charta, 76, 77, ill; Creasy, 

 Eng. Const., 127-29; Stubbs, Select Charters, 2,00; Const. Hist.,1, 607; Bigelow, 

 Hist, of Procedure in England, 131-141. 



2 Stubbs, Select Charters, 469-74; Nicholls, Hist, of Eng. Poor Laiv, I, 22-23. 



^ The earliest treatise on the justice of the peace is that of Marrow published 

 in the iSth year of Henry VII. This was followed in 15 14 by Sir Anthony Fitz- 

 Herbert's Z' Office et Auctoritie de yustices de Peace, an English version of which 

 appeared in 1538; enlarged by Richard Compton, 1587: Alibone, Dictionary of 

 Authors, s.v. These two works constitute the basis of the still more celebrated 

 Eirenarcha of William Lambard, which has been copied by Blackstone, Reeves, 

 and other writers. The first edition of Lambard's work appeared in 1581, and 

 by 1 61 9 it had been reprinted eleven times; references in the text are to the 

 edition of 1614, a copy of which is in the author's possession. 



More extended treatises are The Country fustice of Michael Dalton, first 

 edition 1619, that of 1666 being here cited; and the Justice of the Peace and 

 Parish Officer, by Richard Burn, of which I have used the 3d edition, 1756. 

 The 29th edition of this standard work, in six large volumes, was printed in 1845, 

 supplemented 1852, by E. Wise: Gneist, II, 176. 



Other handbooks are Archbold's Justice of the Peace and Parish Officer; 



271 



