iberties, and manors which had been freed from the old courts of the
shire or hundred; they reviewed their decisions and interfered with their
judgments. It is true that the system established in principle was but
gradually carried into effect, and the people long suffered the tyranny
of lords who maintained their own prisons. Half a century later we find
sturdy barons setting up their tumbrils and gallows. In the reign of
Edward I. there were still thirty-five private gallows in Berkshire
alone, and when one of them was by chance or age broken down, and the
people refused to set it up again, the baron could still make shift with
the nearest oak. But as a system of government, feudalism was doomed from
the day of Henry's Assize, and only dragged out a lingering existence
till the legislation of Edward I. dealt it a final blow.

The duties of police were at that time performed by the whole population,
and the judges' circuits brought home sharply to every man the part he
was expected to play in the suppression of crime. Juries were fined if
they had not "presented" a due amount of criminals; townships were fined
if they had not properly pursued malefactors; villages were fined if a hut
was burned down and the hue and cry was not raised, or if a criminal who
had fled for refuge to their church escaped from it. A robber or murderer
must be paid for by his "pledge," or if he had no pledge, a fine fell on
his village or township; if a dead body were found and the slayer not
produced, the hundred must pay for him, unless a legal form, called
"proving his Englishry," could be gone through--a condition which was
constantly impossible; the township was fined if the body had been buried
before the coming of the coroner; abbot or knight or householder was
heavily taxed for every crime of serf or hired servant under him, or even
for the offences of any starving and worn-out pilgrim or traveller to
whom he had given a three days' shelter.. In the remotest regions of the
country barons and knights and freeholders were called to aid in carrying
out the law. The "jurors" must be ready at the judges' summons wherever
and whenever they were wanted. They must be prepared to answer fully for
their district; they must expect to be called on all sorts of excuses to
Westminster itself, and no hardships of the journey from the farthest
corner of the land might keep them back. The "knights of the shire" were
summoned as "recognitors" to give thei