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During the mid-14th century, it was forbidden that persons who had sat on the presenting jury (i.e., in modern parlance, the grand jury) should also sit on the trial jury for that crime. [2] Medieval juries were self-informing, in that individuals were chosen as jurors because they either knew the parties and the facts, or they had the duty to ...
Trial by ordeal was an ancient judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused (called a "proband" [1]) was determined by subjecting them to a painful, or at least an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience.
After the Assize of Clarendon trial by jury developed, though some historians say beginnings of the jury system predate this act. [1] The Assize of Clarendon did not lead to this change immediately; recourse to trial by combat was not officially rescinded until 1819, though by then it had fallen out of use.
Secular courts in medieval times were numerous and decentralized: each secular division (king, prince, duke, lord, abbot or bishop as landholder, manor, [1] city, forest, market, etc.) could have their own courts, customary law, bailiffs and gaols [a] with arbitrary and unrecorded procedures, including in Northern Europe trial by combat and trial by ordeal, and in England trial by jury.
Trial by combat (also wager of battle, trial by battle or judicial duel) was a method of Germanic law to settle accusations in the absence of witnesses or a confession in which two parties in dispute fought in single combat; the winner of the fight was proclaimed to be right. In essence, it was a judicially sanctioned duel.
A jury trial, or trial by jury, is ... which in those times was a trial by twelve peers. ... Stat 5. c. 3) (1353). Medieval juries were self-informing, in that ...
Compurgation, also called trial by oath, wager of law, and oath-helping, was a defence used primarily in medieval law. A defendant could establish his innocence or nonliability by taking an oath and by getting a required number of persons, typically twelve, to swear they believed the defendant's oath. The wager of law was essentially a ...
Notwithstanding this refusal, the court declined to permit him any sort of trial by ordeal, but realizing the gravity of the situation they empanelled an impressive jury of twenty-four knights. These found Thomas guilty, and therefore he was hanged. At this time, even a villain who refused jury trial might have a panel of twenty-four knights. [1]