manner: We, or, if we should be out of our realm, our chief
justiciary, shall send two justiciaries through every county four
times a year;[70] _who, with four knights chosen out of every shire,
by the people, shall hold the assizes_ (juries) _in the county, on
the day and at the place appointed_."

It would be very unreasonable to suppose that the king's judges were
allowed to _dictate_ the law to the juries, when the people would not
even suffer them to sit alone in jury trials, but themselves chose four
men to sit with them, to keep them honest.[71]

This practice of sending the king's judges into the counties to preside
at jury trials, was introduced by the Norman kings. Under the Saxons it
was not so. _No officer of the king was allowed to preside at a jury
trial; but only magistrates chosen by the people._[72]

But the following chapter of John's charter, which immediately succeeds
the one just quoted, and refers to the same suits, affords very strong,
not to say conclusive, proof, that juries judged of the law in civil
suits--that is, _made the law_, so far as their deciding according to
their own notions of justice could make the law.

_Chap. 23._ "And if, on the county day, the aforesaid assizes cannot
be taken, _so many knights and freeholders shall remain, of those who
shall have been present on said day, as that the judgments may be
rendered by them_, whether the business be more or less."

The meaning of this chapter is, that so many of the _civil_ suits, as
could not be tried on the day when the king's justices were present,
should be tried afterwards, _by the four knights before mentioned, and
the freeholders, that is, the jury_. It must be admitted, of course,
that the juries, in these cases, judged the matters of law, as well as
fact, unless it be presumed that the _knights_ dictated the law to the
jury--a thing of which there is no evidence at all.

As a final proof on this point, there is a statute enacted seventy years
after Magna Carta, which, although it is contrary to the common law, and
therefore void, is nevertheless good evidence, inasmuch as it contains
an acknowledgment, on the part of the king himself, that juries had a
right to judge of the whole matter, law and fact, in civil suits. The
provision is this:

"It is ordained, that the justices assigned to take the assizes,
shall not compel the jurors to say precisely whether it be disseisin,
or not, so