38 George E. Hozvard, 



robbers, or receivers of such, and to fulfil their duty of pur- 

 suing the thief when the hue and cry is raised. The enforce- 

 ment of the edict was committed to knights assigned (milites 

 assignati) for the purpose ; this is probably the origin of the 

 office of conservator of the peace, out of which, in the reign 

 of Edward III, the existing functions of the justice of the 

 peace were developed." ^ "Assigned" knights also appear 

 under Henry III, 1230 and 1252.^ 



A second stage is reached in the custos pacis of the fifth 

 year of Edward I, elected by the sheriff and community in 

 the full county court ;'^ whether the oflice was permanent or 

 occasional is not known.'* 



In 1285 "conservators" were elected, probably in the same 

 way, to carry out the provisions of the Statute of Winchester.^ 



Deacon's Guide to Magistrates Out of Sessions ; Dickinson's Practical Guide to 

 the Quarter Sessions afid other Sessions of the Peace ; Leeming and Cross's The 

 General Quarter Sessions of the Peace. 



Among modern historical works on the subject, by far the most elaborate treat- 

 ment is contained in Gneist's Englische Communalverfassung oder das System des 

 Selfgovernnieiit (Vol. II of his Englische Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsrecht, 

 Berlin, 1857-1860), several hundred pages of which are devoted to it. I have 

 also derived much assistance from Stephen, History of the Criminal Lara of 

 England ; Reeves, History of the English Law ; Blackstone, Commentaries on 

 the Laivs of England ; Wood, An Institute of the Laws of England, 1754; Stubbs, 

 Select Charters and his Constitutional History ; Maitland, Justice and Police ; 

 Chalmers, Local Government ; Wright, The Office of Magistrate (London, 1889); 

 Brodrick, Local Government in Englaftd, in Cobden Club publications, 1882, 

 edited by J. W. Probyn; Thornton, Two Centuries of Magistrates^ Work in 

 Surrey : Fort. Rev., May, 18S9; Goodnow, Local Government in England : Pol. 

 Science Quart., Dec. 1887; Pulling,.-/ Handbook for County Authorities (London, 

 1889); Hobhouse and Fanshawe, The County Couiicillo7-'s Guide (London, 

 1888); Cox, Institutions of the English Goiiernment ; P. V. Smith, History of 

 English Institutions ; Toulmin Smith, The Parish ; Nicholls, History of the Eng- 

 lish Poor Laiu ; especially, Hamilton, Quarter Sessions from Queen Elizabeth to 

 Queen Anne ; and the Middlesex County Records, 3 vols., edited for the Middle- 

 sex County Record Society by John Cordy Jeaffreson. These records are rich in 

 illustrations of the social history of the i6th and 17th centuries; and many a power- 

 ful sidelight is thrown on affairs of national importance. The editor has introduced 

 each volume by a long preface of great value. 



1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., I, 507; Hoveden, III, 299. 



- Stubbs, Const. Hist., II, 272. ^ //;., 209-10, 273. 



■* lb., 272. 5 lb., 210. 



272 



