Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/315

THE JUR T AND ITS DE VEL OP MEN T. 299 42 Edw. III. c. 11 (1368), mentioned in 3 Bl. Com. 353. Proba- bly Coke's remark about it in 3 Inst. 175, that both parties must be present when this information was given, are a modern gloss ; although, doubtless, a party had to keep inside the law of em- bracery. It was a little later than the time of Palgrave's story when Thomas Makerill and his brother, in 13 17, were arrested for as- saulting an officer of the court in " Fletestrete," and twelve men of the court, in whose presence this took place, and also twelve men of the visne of " Fletestrete " were summoned for a jury (PI. Ab. 331, col. 1). About 1356, when a judge of the Com- mon Bench complained in the Exchequer against a woman for calling him "traitor, felon, and robber," the case went to an inquest of "attorneys of the Common Bench and the Exchequer" (Lib. Ass. 177, 19). (b) These cases illustrate a very common method of securing for the jury a better knowledge of matters in issue, viz., that of com- bining men of different visnes, who might inform each other. This existed in Normandy ; and we notice it in our own earliest records, as in 1 199 (Rot. Cur. Reg. ii. 10). A remarkable instance of the use of separate juries for amassing their several contributions of knowledge by separate verdicts is found in the proceedings on oc- casion of the great robbery of the royal treasury at Westminster Abbey, in 1303. Mr. Pike, to whom we owe this information, cites the case as illustrating the progress made in separating the accus- ing and the trial jury (Hist. Crime, i, 198-200 ; 207-8,466). The king appointed a commission of inquiry. " A jury was empanelled for every ward of the city of London, and for every hundred of Middlesex and Surrey — and in addition to these there was a jury of goldsmiths and aldermen." They charged certain persons. Five justices were then directed to try the accused. " Juries were summoned from the same hundred and wards as before, but in obedience to a different commission." It is not clear, in this case, just how the separate juries were used at the trial. In general, separate panels in such cases were combined in one. In 1230 (Br. N. B. ii, case 375), seven from Surrey and seven from London were united into one jury by consent. It was the practice, later on, at any rate, 1 where two panels were sum- 1 As in 1402, Y. B. 4 H. IV. 1, pi. 2; and in 1619, Hob. 330.