Ontario High School History of England . olid intheir ignorance as not to be greatly concerned to aid thecause of justice. Trial by jury and the ordeal.—The mode of dealing withaccused persons was also vastly different from that of our ownage. Trial by jury, the germ of which we find under HenryII (p 80), slowly changed its character. At first, thejurors were themselves the witnesses in a case, but, in time,they were obliged to take the evidence of others, as topoints on which they hadno personal knowledge,and thus the jury, as weknow it, was new method of trialwas needed. Under
Ontario High School History of England . olid intheir ignorance as not to be greatly concerned to aid thecause of justice. Trial by jury and the ordeal.—The mode of dealing withaccused persons was also vastly different from that of our ownage. Trial by jury, the germ of which we find under HenryII (p 80), slowly changed its character. At first, thejurors were themselves the witnesses in a case, but, in time,they were obliged to take the evidence of others, as topoints on which they hadno personal knowledge,and thus the jury, as weknow it, was new method of trialwas needed. Under theold system of the ordeal(p. 36) a man accused ofcrime was deemed inno-cent if he had plunged hisarm into boiling waterand, when uncoveredlater, it was found notto have festered. TheNormans had brought toEngland another kind ofordeal, that of trial bybattle. If one man ac-cused another, the two, armed with weapons like shortpickaxes, fought until one forced the other to yield. Itwas assumed that the God of Battles would give victory. A Trial by Battle 168 HISTORY OF ENGLAND to the one who was in the right. As early as 1215 theordeal was falling into disuse and trial by jury was growingin favour. Yet, for many more centuries, an accused manmight refuse trial by jury, and, under the law, he couldnot be so tried until his consent was given. The lawpermitted force to be used to compel his consent. He wasasked, How will you be tried ? and if he answered, By God and my country, which meant by a jury, histrial proceeded. But if he refused this answer, he wasliable to torture under heavy weights until he either diedfrom this -peine forte et dure, or consented. An accusedman might see that hanging was inevitable if he should betried by a jury, and might prefer the terrible suffering ofbeing pressed to death, since then he would die unconvicted,and his property would go to his family and not be forfeitedto the state. Means of communication.—During the Middle Ages theoutward aspect
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