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Indiana University Studies 
The evolution of the jury became complete in this period. 
Jurors entirely ceased to be witnesses and became judges of 
the facts. New trials were granted in 1655. The rules as to 
the measure of damages began to be formulated in the eight- 
eenth century. The independence of the jury was established 
in BushelVs Case (1670) when Justice Vaughan set at liberty 
a juror who had helped to acquit the Quakers Penn and Mead. 
The Star Chamber had admonished and fined and imprisoned 
for returning verdicts contrary to the direction of the court. 
The chief justice of the King’s Bench had continued this prac- 
tice. But the above decision of Justice Vaughan ended the 
practice. 
By an act of 1731 all pleadings in common law actions were 
required to be in English. Thus was terminated the practice 
begun upon the establishment of the Curia Regis by William 
I of having all pleadings in a curious language called, by 
courtesy, French. 
The reports which cover the common law cases of this 
time are the Year Books, which cover the period from 1292 
to 1537 ; the casual private reports, which cover the period 
from 1537 to 1785; and the regular term reports which began 
with 1785. The chancery reports began to improve. Text- 
books of equity began to appear. 
In general little improvement was made in common law 
legal procedure, and the procedure in chancery became noted 
for its delays. Reforms were demanded, but few were made. 
The social interest in general morals had to be protected by 
antecedent rights and remedial rights rather than by a legal 
procedure adapted to that end. The extraordinary courts of 
the Tudors were overthrown; the Ecclesiastical Courts were 
reduced to dignified impotence; the House of Lords was pre- 
vented by the Commons from trying cases as a court of origi- 
nal jurisdiction; the Court of Chancery answered to the needs 
of the subject; and with this the people were willing to en- 
dure for a longer time the barbarities of common law pro- 
cedure. 
United States. While United States history began in the 
Period of Equity, there has never been any such period in the 
history of legal development in this country. Legal history 
here begins with the Period of Maturity, which we shall con- 
sider next. In New England in the seventeenth and the first 
