Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 3, Page 346

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Bracton Online -- English

Volume 3, Page 346

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[001] the tenant be amerced, and the jurors, if they are present, be taken into custody, and
[002] if absent arrested. If the twenty-four jurors speak variously and differently, provided
[003] they agree in the principal matter, according as they speak for one party or
[004] the other their verdict will be valid. ¹<If the twelve were not in agreement in the
[005] taking of the assise but in disagreement, the twenty-four may free some and convict
[006] the others, as happened [in the case] of Albert in the county of Somerset.>²

What the punishment of those convicted is.

[008] The punishment of those convicted in the aforesaid assises will be this: first of all,
[009] let them be arrested and cast into prison, and let all their lands and chattels be
[010] seized into the king's hand until they are redeemed at the king's will, so that nothing
[011] remains to them except their vacant tenements. They incur perpetual infamy and
[012] lose the lex terrae, so that they will never afterwards by admitted to an oath, for
[013] they will not henceforth be oathworthy,³ nor be received as witnesses, because it is
[014] presumed that he who is once convicted of perjury will perjure himself again. Those
[015] who swear saving the view, and were newly assumed at the taking of the assise, are
[016] excused of the infamy (but not of the punishment of redemption) for such persons
[017] may not unreasonably be ignorant of the truth, which is not so of those, chosen at
[018] the beginning and summoned to make the recognition, who contemptuously refused
[019] to make the view, for if that were allowed them they could profit by their
[020] contempt, which ought not to be.⁴ They are to be dealt with more leniently, with
[021] respect to the infamy but not the punishment of redemption,⁵ who, after the taking
[022] of the assise, before conviction, seek, as persons deceived, to amend their verdict,
[023] as among the pleas which follow the king in the twenty-first year of his reign, an
[024] assise taken before Simon of Roppelay and his companions in the county of Lincoln,
[025] [the case] of Lambert son of Lambert,⁶ as to which a jury of twenty-four to convict
[026] twelve was summoned coram rege outside the county, and where, before conviction,
[027] the jurors put themselves in the king's mercy, where they were heavily fined.⁷
[028] Those may be treated more leniently than the jurors aforesaid, who voluntarily,
[029] when misled by reasonable error, their consciences troubled by their oath, correct
[030] their verdict and put themselves in the king's mercy without plaint or conviction.
[031] When a jury of twenty-four is taken outside the county

Notes

1. Supra i, 408

2. Unidentified

3. Supra 71

4. Supra 63, 71, 254

5. Supra 338, infra 355

6. B.N.B., no. 1209; C.R.R., xv, p. 491 n.

7. Supra 336, 338, infra 355