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Indiana University Studies 
law these were very different from what they are in modern 
law. In primitive law the mode of trial was never in the 
form of an investigation of the facts. It was arbitrary and 
mechanical and generally predicated upon ordeal. Anglo-Saxon 
methods of trial were compurgation (wager of law), wit- 
nesses, charters, record, ordeal (cold water, hot water, hot 
iron, and the morsel). The Normans introduced into Eng- 
land two new modes of trial; wager of battle (as mechanical 
as the old Anglo-Saxon methods), and trial by jury, which 
finally supplanted all other methods and is the present 
method of trial of most cases. The jury took its origin in 
the inquisition or inquest of the Frankish kings, who borrowed 
it from the Roman governors. The Norman dukes brought 
it into England at the time of the Conquest. At first it was 
used for all purposes for which the king might desire to know 
facts within the knowledge of the free men of any locality. 
The jury then in their verdict stated what they knew not from 
the evidence of others but from personal knowledge and re- 
pute in the neighborhood, but by a gradual process of evolu- 
tion thru the centuries the jury ceased to be witnesses and 
became triers or judges of the facts and became subject to 
rules of law in the awarding of damages. 
The following account by Professor Edmund M. Morgan 
of a hypothetical case involving a student and a policeman 
will give the student a bird’s-eye view of the details of practice 
and will show him the steps which have to be taken in a civil 
case in their order and will show the relationship of pleading 
and evidence to the rest of legal procedure . 16 
Beginning the Action. Suppose that Samuel Student and Peter 
Policeman have been engaged in an altercation. Student asserts that 
while he was peaceably walking along the street, Policeman without 
cause struck him with a club and severely injured him. He retains 
Lewis Lawyer to bring action against Policeman. After making as 
thorough an investigation as practicable, Lawyer is of the opinion that 
Policeman was at fault and ought to respond in damages. If this had 
happened under the old common law system in England, Lawyer’s first 
task would have been to determine what writ and form of action would 
afford the proper remedy. In this instance Lawyer would have gone 
or have had Student go to the Chancery Office for a writ in Trespass, 
The sheriff would have summoned the defendant Policeman as com- 
16 Morgan, Introduction to the Study of Law, 14-18. Published by permission of 
Professor Morgan. 
