The Assize of Clarendon, history of law, explained.
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in 1166, king Henry II of England promulgated the Assize of Clarendon,
which transformed English law and led to trial by jury.
king Henry inherited a kingdom, where law and order had broken down, during the Anarchy and the civil war.
he also had to face the challenge of canon law, as the growing power of the papacy threatened his authority.
Henry needed to regain control of the law, by restricting the Church courts’ ability to punish the clergy.
The Assize required twelve men from each locality, to announce publicly and under oath, those they suspected of crimes.
Those found guilty by the ordeal faced a fine, confiscation of property,
and the amputation of a hand as well as a foot.
The use of juries gradually extended, until trial by jury became a hallmark of the British legal tradition. Henry’s reforms also laid the basis for common law.
The grand jury's role continued to evolve, and by the seventeenth
century it had ceased functioning as an enforcer for the crown, and became a safeguard against arbitrary prosecutions.
By the mid-seventeenth century, the English grand jury made its way to the American colonies, where it soon found a hallowed place in the Bill of Rights.
