King s Peace and EjiglisJi Peace-Magistracy. 39 



Conscrvatorcs facis were appointed for each county on the 

 accession of Edward II, 1307, among whom was the sheriff, 

 and they were enjoined to be always present in their districts.^ 



On the accession of Edward III, 1327, appeared a very 

 important statute providing that, in every county, " good men 

 and lawful, which be no maintainers of evil or barretors in 

 the country, be assigned to keep the peace." ^ The authority 

 of the magistrates thus assigned was, it is supposed, purely 

 executive, " being limited probably to suppressing disturb- 

 ances and apprehending offenders, so that they were little 

 more than constables on a large scale." ^ It is important also 

 to observe that this ordinance marks, in another particular, a 

 significant stage in the evolution of the office of justice : 

 hitherto, since 5 Edward I, conservators had been usually, if 

 not invariably, elected in the county court ; they now lose all 

 connection with that body, and henceforth bear the character 

 of royal commissioners.'^ 



These "conservators," or "justices assigned," as they are 

 called in the statute, were entrusted in the following year 

 with the execution of the Statute of Winchester, and they 

 were authorized to examine and punish evil doers. This 

 seems to be the earliest example of the exercise of judicial 

 functions by justices of the peace. ° 



1 Gneist, II, 42. 



- Statutes at Large, I, 419-20; Lambard, Eirenarcha, 1 9-2 1; Stephen, Hist. 

 of Crim. Law, I, 112; Reeves, LList. of Eng. Law, III, 202; Gneist, II, 42; 

 Blackstone, Commentaries, I, 351 ; Political Cyclopivdia, III, 153. On the act 

 of 1327 and, in general, on the causes of the rise of the justice of the peace, see 

 Goodnow, Local Government in England : Pol. Science Quart., II, 644 ff. 



^ Stephen, LJist. of Crim. Lata, I, 112. 



* "Which was as much to say," says Lambard of this act, " that in euery shire 

 the king himselfe should place special eyes and watches ouer the common people, 

 that should bee both willing and wise to foresee, and be also enabled with meete 

 authoritie to represse all intention of uproare and force, euen in the first seed 

 thereof, and before that it should grow up to any offer of danger. So that, for 

 this cause (as I think) the election of the simple Conseruators (or Wardens) of 

 the peace was first taken from the people, and translated to the assign ement of 

 the King " : Eirenarcha, 20. 



5 Statutes at Large, I, 424. Cf. Gneist, II, 42; Reeves, Hist, of the Eng. Law, 

 III, 204; Cox, Institutions of the Eng. Government, 313. 



