the members of this small community. In affairs
of greater moment, in appeals from the decennary, or in controversies
arising between members of different decennaries, the cause was brought
before the hundred, which consisted of ten decennaries, or a hundred
families of freemen, and which was regularly assembled once in four
weeks, for the deciding of causes.[*] Their method of decision deserves
to be noted, as being the origin of juries; an institution admirable in
itself, and the best calculated for the preservation of liberty and
the administration of justice that ever was devised by the wit of man.
Twelve freeholders were chosen, who, having sworn, together with the
hundreder, or presiding magistrate of that division, to administer
impartial justice,[**] proceeded to the examination of that cause which
was submitted to their jurisdiction. And beside these monthly meetings
of the hundred, there was an annual meeting, appointed for a more
general inspection of the police of the district; for the inquiry into
crimes, the correction of abuses in magistrates, and the obliging of
every person to show the decennary in which he was registered. The
people, in imitation of their ancestors, the ancient Germans, assembled
there in arms; whence a hundred was sometimes called a wapentake, and
its courts served both for the support of military discipline and for
the administration of civil justice.[***]

[* Leges St. Edw. cap. 2.]

[** Foedus Alfred. et Gothurn. apud Wilkins, cap. 3, p. 47.
Leg. Ethelstani cap. 2, apud Wilkins, p. 58. LL. Ethelr.
sect. 4. Wilkins, p. 117.]

[*** Spelman, in voce Wapentake.]

The next superior court to that of the hundred was the county court,
which met twice a year, after Michaelmas and Easter, and consisted
of the freeholders of the county, who possessed an equal vote in the
decision of causes. The bishop presided in this court, together with
the alderman; and the proper object of the court was, the receiving
of appeals from the hundreds and decennaries, and the deciding of such
controversies as arose between men of different hundreds. Formerly, the
alderman possessed both the civil and military authority; but Alfred,
sensible that this conjunction of powers rendered the nobility dangerous
and independent, appointed also a sheriff in each county, who enjoyed
a cooerdinate authority with the former in the judicial function.[*]
His office also impowered him to guard the r