Note 210 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES (continued 2)

We have the lists, in all, for eighteen Hundreds, fifteen in Cambridgeshire and three in Herts, of which two were 'double'. There were, practically, for each Hundred exactly eight juratores, half of them 'French' and half 'English'. But the two 'double' Hundreds had sixteen each, half of them 'French' and half 'English'. Although it is recorded that 'alii omnes franci et angli de hoc hundredo juraverunt', it is obvious that the eight men always specially mentioned were, in a special degree, responsible for the verdict. Their position is illustrated, I think, by the record of a Cambridgeshire placitum found in the Rochester chronicles. This is the famous suit of Bishop Gundulf against Picot the sheriff in the County Court of Cambridgeshire,210 which affords a valuable instance of a jury being elected to confirm by their oaths the (unsworn) verdict of the whole court: