ch enacted that the money weighed out for town-geld
should if needful be tested by re-melting. The treasurer extended this to
the whole system of the Exchequer. He ordered that all money brought to
the Exchequer should itself be tested, and the difference between its
weight and real value paid by the sheriff who brought it. The burden thus
fell on the country, for the sheriff would of course protect himself as
far as he could by exacting the same tests on all sums paid to him. If
the pound was worth but ten shillings in the market, no doubt the sheriff
only took it for ten shillings in his court. Practically each tax, each
due, must have been at least doubled, and the sheriff himself was at the
mercy of the Exchequer moneyers. There was but one way to remedy the
evil, by securing the purity of the coin, and twice during his reign
Henry made this his special care.

In the absence of records we can only dimly trace the work of legal reform
which was carried out by Henry's legal officers; but it is plain that
before 1164 certain great changes had already been fully established. A
new and elaborate system of rules seems gradually to have been drawn up
for the guidance of the justices who sat in the Curia Regis; and a new set
of legal remedies in course of time made the chances of justice in this
court greater than in any other court of the realm. The _Great Assize_, an
edict whose date is uncertain, but which was probably issued during the
first years of his reign, developed and set in full working order the
imperfect system of "recognition" established by the Norman kings.
Henceforth the man, whose right to his freehold was disputed, need but
apply to the Curia Regis to issue an order that all proceedings in the
local courts should be stopped until the "recognition" of twelve chosen
men had decided who was the rightful owner according to the common
knowledge of the district, and the barbarous foreign custom of settling
the matter by combat was done away with. Under the new system the Curia
Regis eventually became the recognized court of appeal for the whole
kingdom. So great a mass of business was drawn under its control that the
king and his regular ministers could no longer suffice for the work, and
new judges had to be added to the former staff; and at last the positions
of the two chief courts of the kingdom were reversed, and the King's Court
took the foremost place in the amount and importance of its business.

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