Note 119 — [pg 249]No. XXIII.

We find by ancient records, that the clergy, before the conquest, were sometimes summoned az jurors or judges in the temporal courts.[d] But the thanes were the most usual judges in the courts baron. The proper Saxon name of this court waz halimate or halmote, hallmeeting; "Omnis causa terminetur vel hundredo, vel comitatu, vel halimote, socam habentiam, vel dominorum curia."[e] And in W. Thorn, Anno 1176, the judges of this court are expressly said to be thanes, "thanenses, qui in Halimoto suo, in Thaneto, omnia sua judicia exerceri," (debent.) Selden, chap. 47, mentions a law of Henry I, which recites a custom of that time, by which "the bishops and erls, with other the cheef men of the county, were present in the county court az assistants in directory of judgement." Nothing can be more explicit. And altho Selden, in a passage hereafter quoted, mentions a compromise between Gunthrune, the Dane, and the Saxon king, that men of a rank inferior to lords should be tried by their equals, yet this inferior rank could extend only to freemen; for others were never admitted upon juries.

[d] See Selden, tit Sax. bishops.

[e] L. L. Hen. I. cap. 10.