If   somethimes  a  mere   accusation  of  a  complainant  put  a  party
to  his  oath  was  not  always  so,   especially  in  criminal  cases,
for  there   seems  to  have  been  an  accusing  body   or   inquest
like   our   grand  jury. In  the   laws  of  Ethelrea  it   is  pro-
vided that   in  the  Hundred  twelve   thanes   or   freeholders  were
to  be   sworn  that  they  would  accuse   no  innocent  man,   nor
Conceal  any  guilty  one,     And  the  Dooms  of  the   same  king
indicate   that  the  concurring  voice   of  eight   out  of  the
twelve   was  sufficient   to  establish  the   accusation. This
hint  of  an  accusing  jury  at  so  early  a  period  is  interesting


524


though  we   know  little    of  the  real  facts. The    investigations
of  Pollock  and  Maitland  indicate   that   such  an   inquest  was
confided  to  twelve  men  of  the   Hundred  and  four  men  of  the
Vill'^^:   that  they  examined  no  witnesses  and  made   no  specific
criminal  accusation,  but  presented  men  of  bad  reputation  and
notorious  for  their  loose   living:  that  where   the    inc^airy
developed  a  crime   committed  and  unavenged  the  accusing
jury  becarue   also   in  some   fashion  a  trial   jury:  but  that  the
inquest   in  settled  form  is   only  to  be  found  as  a  practical
institution  at   the  date   of  the  assize   of  Clarendon  on  about
1166,   at  which  period  the  accusing  jurors  "avow"   and  present
what  they  have   learned  from  common  report,      When  they  ap-
pear before   the  court  they  are   closely  questioned,    indeed
almost  catachized. They  are   supposed  to  know  ishat   occurs
in  their  hundred  or  vill,   and  if  a  crime   is  disclosed  they
name   the   suspected  person  who   is  forthwith  sent   to  the
ordeal,  but   later  and  in  the  fourteenth  century,  may  put
himself  "on  the  country",   that    is,    submit  his  case  to  a
jury  of  the  vicinage. How  and  when  the  change  came  by  which
the   one   jury  became  merely  the  accuser  while  the   other  sat
at  the   trial  we   do   not  know. We   do  know  that   it  was  earlier
than  the   sixteenth  or   seventeenth  century  though  how  much
earlier   is   quite  uncertain. For,    in  two  small  black-letter
volumes  published  by  Rastall  to  whom  Reems  refers  in  his
history  of  the  English  law  is  a  seation  entitled  in  old


525


Latin  "The  Met  Jtod  of  Holding  the  Court  Baron  and  View  of
Frankpledge."      The  volumes  bear  the   date   of  1534. 