Henry II had inherited the throne of…

Henry II had inherited the throne of a troubled kingdom.

The Crusades, a military endeavor that keeps noble landowners away from their castles for years at a time, are in full swing.

Unoccupied and unclaimed land invites squatters; since there is no central recording office for real property in England at this time, and sorting out who owns what fief is entrusted to human memory, disputes arise when aristocrats return, or died thousands of miles from home.

Another, even more serious problem requiring royal action had been the aftermath of the disastrous civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda.

The two competing factions had hired mercenary soldiers, and when there was no one left to pay them, many of them took up robbery and other forms of violence as a profession.

Crime had followed the breakdown of local authority.

The quarrel between the King and the Empress had created more property troubles; as communities were divided, both factions were happy to reward their supporters with the lands of the local opponents.

Finally, there is the long-standing difficulty involving the Church, which will culminate in the murder of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The problem for the King is that the Church acts like an imperium in imperio, a "kingdom within a kingdom", only partially subject to Henry's laws if at all.

The Church operates its own court system, which answers not to Henry but to the Pope; it is a large landowner and a powerful vested interest.

Henry wishes to establish a system of justice that will enlarge the power of the Crown at the expense of the clergy.

Henry has therefore founded various assizes, known respectively as the assize of novel disseisin, of mort d'ancestor, and of darrein presentment.

The most popular one becomes the assize of novel disseisin, which in Law French means something close to the "assize of recent dispossession".

Those who had been recently put out of their lands could recover the beneficial use of them by resort to this assize, which led to a then innovative method of trial.

Twelve "sword-girt" knights of the locality are summoned to determine, upon their own knowledge, who is entitled to the property.

This innovative method of proceeding, the origin of the civil petit jury at common law, is aimed at the chaos introduced into property rights by crusade and civil war.

Under the Assize of Clarendon, issued in 1166, Henry initiates a procedure by which jurors are commanded to appear before a royal judge and relate any knowledge they have of crimes or criminals in a given area.

This the beginning of the transformation of English law from such systems for deciding the prevailing party in a case as trial by ordeal or trial by battle to an evidentiary model, in which evidence and inspection is made by laymen.

This act greatly fosters the methods that will eventually be known in common law countries as trial by jury.