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According to George Macaulay Trevelyan in A Shortened History of England, during the Viking occupation: “ The Scandinavians, when not on the Viking warpath, were a litigious people and loved to get together in the ‘ thing ’ to hear legal argument.

They had no professional lawyers, but many of their farmer-warriors, like Njal, the truth-teller, were learned in folk custom and in its intricate judicial procedure.

A Danish town in England often had, as it principal officers, twelve hereditary ‘ law men .’ The Danes introduced the habit of making committees among the free men in court, which perhaps made England favorable ground for the future growth of the jury system out of a Frankish custom later introduced by the Normans .”