Assize of Clarendon

The Assize of Clarendon was an 1166 act of Henry II of England that began the transformation of English law from such systems for deciding the prevailing party in a case, especially felonies, as trial by ordeal or trial by battle or trial by compurgation to an evidentiary model, in which evidence, inspection, and inquiry was made by laymen, knights or ordinary freemen, under oath. This act greatly fostered the methods that would eventually be known in common law countries as trial by jury.

The Assize of Clarendon did not lead to this change immediately, however; recourse to trial by combat was not officially rescinded until 1819.

The Assize takes its name from Clarendon Palace, Wiltshire, the royal hunting lodge at which it was promulgated.

Henry II inherited (in 1154) the throne of a troubled kingdom. The Crusades were in full swing at the time, a military endeavour that kept noble landowners away from their castles for years at a time. Unoccupied and unclaimed land invited squatters; since there was no central recording office for real property in England at the time, and sorting out who owned what fief was entrusted to human memory, disputes arose when aristocrats returned, or died thousands of miles from home.

Another, even more serious problem requiring royal action was 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 followed the breakdown of local authority. The quarrel between the King and the Empress created more property troubles; as communities were divided, both factions were happy to reward their supporters with the lands of the local opponents.

...
Wikipedia