European History 1088-1228 Author:Elizabeth Missing Sewell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: details of this institution was one of the great works of his -d. grandson. The year 1166 must be fixed flpon as the date, and the Assize of Clarendon as the ... more »act, which mark the first distinct appearance of this important reform. . . . But it would seem that the annual visitations of the justices which were then introduced proved ineffectual to check the oppressions and exactions of the sheriffs. The judges were unable, in the absence of the King, and in the disturbed state of public feeling, to put any check on the sheriffs, supported as they were by local influence and prescriptive authority. The complaints of the people became so loud, that, in a great council held at London shortly after Easter 1170, the King sent a strong commission of barons-errant, chosen from the clergy and nobles ... to examine into the conduct of the sheriffs. . . . The work was speedily completed: the commissioners brought in their returns on the I4th of June, in time for the coronation of the young King. We find that the King removed all the sheriffs and bailiffs from their offices, and the Pipe Rolls furnish us with one or two cases of heavy fines imposed on the sheriffs under this inquest . Henry, however, as we learn, did subsequently restore several of them, and they revenged themselves on the people by acting more tyrannically than ever. .... The year 1176, the twenty-second of Henry II., is marked 1176 by a further step. In the great Council of Northampton, held January 25, it was determined to add very considerably to the staff of the itinerating courts. The kingdom was accordingly divided into six circuits, to each of which were assigned three judges It is curious that the arrangement remained in force for only two years. In 1178 the King made inquiry into the proceedings of 1178...« less