Note 68 — WHAT OUR MUNICIPAL LAW OWES TO THE CHURCH.

Sir William Jones, a learned scholar and able jurist, was of opinion that the invention of trial by jury could be traced to the ancient Greeks, while Blackstone pretends that the credit of it is due to the Saxons who brought the custom with them to England; but Hallam and other superior authorities maintain that the canon quoted in the text is the first germ on record of this great distinguished feature of English common law, and that it was not till long after the advent of the Normans that it assumed its present systematic form.