Canadian Social Science
The First Criminal Juries in Medieval England
Abstract
The documented beginnings of the jury’s history can be found in the second half of the 12th-century England, while its prehistory can be traced back to earlier and, according to most researchers, to the European Continent. In this study, the author presents the legal sources and reasons for its development in England, with special attention to the appearance of the first form of this legal institution, the grand jury, in the heroic age of the creation of the English common law, through laws issued by King Henry II. All this gives an insight into the criminal social conditions of the time, the period of transformation of private criminal law to public criminal law and the cooperation of royal justices and local juries in legal trials.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/13686
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