CHAPTER X.

MINISTERIAL OFFICERS.

Reeves. Of the officers who serve our courts and execute their orders, the most familiar are the constable and sheriff. These, like the courts themselves, have come down to us from the distant past. In the ancient Saxon township, the head man was called the tûn-gerefa or town reeve. Where townships had developed into boroughs, the headman was called the head borough, or borough reeve.1 In the hundred the headman was the hundred reeve. In the county or shire court the chief man was the shire reeve, which title was early shortened into sheriff. These officers in early times had a variety of duties.

The reeve in the town presided at the town meeting. In case of war or danger he marshalled the townsmen for battle. With the four select men he represented the town in the hundred court and in the county court. The reeve of the hundred performed like duties for the hundred. He presided over the meeting of the hundred court. He was the chief police officer, and probably in early times was commander of the hundred in war. The hundred reeve with twelve chosen men represented the hundred in the county court.

Sheriff and Bailiff. - As the power of kings and

1 The early English community which formed around a strong or fortified place received the name of bourg or borough. Townships became boroughs when several of them were massed together, and came to be recognized as having peculiar rights and privileges. — Freeman's Norman Conquest, Vol. V. p. 302.

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lords increased, the importance of these local officers diminished. The sheriff seems always to have been closely associated with the king. He was generally appointed by the king, and represented the king's government in the county, rather than the people's government. In the case of the headmen of the older and freer governments of the hundred and the town, we have not only a diminishing of their position and importance, but also a change of name. The lord's bailiff displaced in part the hundred reeve.

Constable. With the Norman lords and kings from France came into England the name Constable, which was destined to fill an important place in English and American history. The name is from comes stabuli, companion of the stable, and may once have meant a hostler; but in the Norman period of English history it had the more dignified meaning of a commander of horse. The Lord High Constable of England was the chief military officer of the realm. The lords of the castles had constables as commanders of their horse. In striving to perfect their military systems, the kings appointed constables in the hundreds, to see that the laws for arming and training the militia were carried into effect. Constables were also chosen in the towns; and these officers took the place of the reeves in the town and the hundred. The constable of the hundred was called the high constable, and that in the town the petty constable. As the work of the hundred came to be done by the parish and the county, the high constable disappeared, and the petty constable remained as a local police and ministerial officer.

Judicial and Ministerial Functions.

The sheriffs,

constables, and bailiffs being chief officers of a court, or of a body of citizens exercising judicial functions, came themselves to hold courts, and to exercise judicial powers. There is a clause in Magna Charta, given by King John in 1215, forbidding sheriffs, coroners, constables, and bailiffs of the king to hold pleas of the king, or to try cases at law. The judicial business was passing more and more into the hands of the king's justices. At the same time the head officers in the older local assemblies, or people's courts, became known chiefly as servants of the new courts. They served notices, subpoenaed witnesses, arrested criminals, empanelled juries, seized and sold property, as they were ordered by the judge. These are called ministerial officers because it is their chief business to attend upon the court and obey its orders. The constable attends the court of the justice of the peace. As in England, so in America, the sheriff is the chief ministerial officer of courts held in and for counties. The mayors and police courts of our cities may be served by a marshal. United States marshals do the ministerial work of the United States courts.

Coroner. The office of coroner has a somewhat peculiar history. The office seems to have been created by the kings, previous to the giving of Magna Charta, for the purpose of limiting the judicial power of the sheriff. The name is from corona, crown. The coroner appeared in the shires and some of the boroughs as the special crown officer. He held pleas in the name of the king. He had special charge of the king's business. As the power of the crown has declined in the English constitution, and entirely died out in America, the

office of the coroner has been restricted, so that the chief business left for him is that of holding inquests over the dead; and even this business is sometimes committed to justices of the peace. There is still a remnant of the old functions connecting the coroner with the sheriff, in the provisions made by statute that the coroner shall serve processes on the sheriff, and act as sheriff in case of vacancy in that office.

CHAPTER XI.

JURIES.

Ancient Origin. - The jury is an important agency in the administration of justice. In many nations there has been something like the jury system, but only in England, and in governments founded by Englishmen, has the system been fully developed and preserved. We cannot tell when the jury system originated in England. We find customs which had some influence in developing the jury as far back as our knowledge extends. In those wonderful town meetings of our Saxon ancestors there grew up a custom of settling difficulties as follows. An injured person would stand up before the meeting, and in a formal manner would state his charge against the accused. The accused person

might deny in a formal manner the truth of the charge, and produce twelve witnesses of approved character who would join hands and swear with him to the truth of his denial; witnesses might also be produced on the other side. The object of this custom was to decide the case according to the facts.

Ordeal and Compurgation. When this method failed, when witnesses were equally divided, or if for any reason the meeting or court were not able to reach a satisfactory decision, they resorted to other methods of determining the facts. Sometimes the accused person was thrown into deep water; and if he did not sink, he was held to be innocent. Or he was blindfolded, and compelled to walk over a space strewn with hot irons; and if he was not burnt, he was held to be innocent. Or his hands were thrust into hot water; and if he was not scalded, he was innocent. The theory was, that where man had failed to reach the facts by witnesses, God would in these ways indicate them. This method of trial was called trial by ordeal. The method of determining the facts by twelve sworn witnesses was called trial by compurgation. The twelve witnesses were called compurgators, or fellow-swearers. In either case, whether the trial was by compurgators or by ordeal, the final decision of the case rested with the organized meeting or court. The accused was condemned or acquitted by the voice of his fellow-citizens in town meeting; or, if the proceedings were in the hundred or the county court, the representatives of towns and manors in these courts decided cases in the name of the entire communities which they represented.

We have not in these customs the jury system; neither do we have much that resembles the jury. But there is this fact, which cannot be overlooked in the history of the origin of the jury: twelve men were accustomed to join hands and voices, and swear to the same thing in the presence of a body of citizens who were exercising the power of punishing crimes.