The responsibility of receiving the oath of
the peace is changed from the sheriff to knights, the duty of the
sheriffs being only to receive and keep the criminals taken by
these knights until the justices came to try them.
Also, at this time, the constitution of the grand jury of the
county was defined. First, four knights were to be chosen in the
county court. These were to select on oath two knights from each
hundred. These two, also on oath, are to add by co-optation ten
more for the jury of the hundred.
In London, if one of two witnesses for the defence died while an
action was pending, the survivor, after offering his oath, could
proceed to the grave of the dead witness, and there offer oath as
to what the dead man would have sworn if he had been alive. If a
foreigner was bound to make oath for debt or any misdeed, he could
make it with six others, his own oath being the seventh; but if
could not find six supporters, he alone could make the oath and
take it in the six nearest churches.
In London, the method of capital punishment was being confined to
hanging, instead of also being in the form of beheading, burning,
drowning, stoning, or hurling from a rock. In cases of drowning,
the offender was first sewn up in a sack with a snake, a dog, an
ape, and a cock.
Chief Justiciar Ranulph Glanvill wrote a treatise on the writs
which could be brought in the Royal Court and the way they could
be used.
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