assize

assize, or assise

(obsolete)

/asayz/ An ancient species of court, consisting of a certain number of men, usually twelve, who were summoned together to try a disputed cause, performing the functions of a jury, except that they gave a verdict from their own investigation and knowledge and not upon evidence adduced. From the fact that they sat together (assideo), they were called the "assize." A court composed of an assembly of knights and other substantial men, with the baron or justice, in a certain place, at an appointed time. The verdict or judgment of the jurors or recognitors of assize. 3 Bl. Comm. 57, 59.

In later English law, the name "assizes" or "assises" was given to the court, time, or place where the judges of assize and nisi prius, who were sent by special commission from the crown on circuits through the kingdom, proceeded to take indictments, and to try such disputed causes issuing out of the courts at Westminster as were then ready for trial, with the assistance of a jury from the particular county. These judges of assize were the successors of the ancient "justices in eyre." They sat by virtue of four separate authorities:

(1) Commission of Oyer and Terminer,

(2) of goal delivery,

(3) of nisi prius, and

(4) Commission of Peace.

In 1971 the Crown Court was established which superseded the criminal jurisdiction of courts of assize and all the jurisdiction of quarter sessions. The assize courts were accordingly abolished. Anything reduced to a certainty in respect to time, number, quantity, quality, weight, measure, etc. A species of writ, or real action, said to have been invented by Glanville, chief justice to Henry II, and having for its object to determine the right of possession of lands, and to recover the possession. 3 Bl.Comm. 184, 185.

The whole proceedings in court upon a writ of assize. The verdict or finding of the jury upon such a writ. 3 Bl.Comm. 57.

See also certificate of assize

@ assize of Clarendon

See assisa de Clarendon

@ assize of darrein presentment

A writ of assize which formerly lay when a man or his ancestors under whom he claimed presented a clerk to a benefice, who was instituted, and afterwards, upon the next avoidance, a stranger presented a clerk and thereby disturbed the real patron. 3 Bl.Comm. 245. It has given way to the remedy by quare impedit

@ assize of fresh force

In old English practice, a writ which lay by the usage and custom of a city or borough, where a man was disseised of his lands and tenements in such city or borough. It was called "fresh force," because it was to be sued within forty days after the party's title accrued to him

@ assize of mort d'ancestor

A real action which lay to recover land of which a person had been deprived on the death of his ancestor by the abatement or intrusion of a stranger. 3 Bl.Comm. 185. It was abolished by St. 3 & 4 Wm. IV, c. 27

@ assize of Northhampton

A re-enactment and enlargement (1176) of the Assise of Clarendon.

@ assize of novel disseisin

A writ of assize which lay for the recovery of lands or tenements, where the claimant had been lately disseised

@ assize of the forest

A statute touching orders to be observed in the king's forests

@ assize of utrum

A writ of assize which lay for a parson to recover lands which his predecessor had improperly allowed the church to be deprived of. 3 Bl.Comm. 257. An assize for the trial of the question of whether land is a lay fee, or held in frankalmoigne

@ assize rents

The certain established rents of the freeholders and ancient copyholders of a manor; so called because they are assized, or made precise and certain.

@ grand assize

A peculiar species of trial by jury, introduced in the time of Henry II, giving the tenant or defendant in a writ of right the alternative of a trial by battel, or by his peers. Abolished by 3 & 4 Wm. IV, c. 42, No. 13. 3 Bl.Comm. 341.

See battel

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