The Judicial Reforms of the Reign of Henry II

Inasmuch as this paper is to deal with the judicial reforms of the reign of Henry II, and more particularly with the extension of the jurisdiction of the king\u27s court during that period, we must at the outset, for the purpose of comparison, make a brief study of the courts, their jurisdiction, and their methods of procedure at the close of Saxon and the beginning of Norman times. Mention should first be made of the courts of the hundred and of the shire, for it was in these public local courts, particularly in the former, that in early times justice was for the most part administered. The assembly of the township, the lowest administrative area) was concerned chiefly with the regulation of the common-field husbandry and had no judicial functions. The courts of the hundred and of the shire combined judicial with administrative work, as was the custom in those days. These courts were primitive Teutonic assemblies in which the freemen of the hundred or of the shire were the doomsmen by whom the judgments of the court were rendered. From the early Saxon codes it may be inferred that when they were drawn up the staple judicial proceedings were manslaying, wounding and cattle stealing