The first instance of a grand jury can be traced back to the Assize of Clarendon, an 1166 act of Henry II of England.

Henry II also introduced what is now known as the " grand jury " through his Assize of Clarendon.

* The Assize of Clarendon is enacted in England.

The Assize of Clarendon in 1166 caused these juries to be adopted systematically throughout the country.

The English royal castles also became used as gaols – the Assize of Clarendon in 1166 insisted that royal sheriffs establish their own gaols and, in the coming years, county gaols were placed in all the shrieval royal castles.

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Assize of Clarendon did not lead to this change immediately, however ; recourse to trial by combat was not officially rescinded until 1819.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

* Medieval Sourcebook: Text of the Assize of Clarendon

* Avalon Project, Assize of Clarendon text

* Assize of Clarendon

Henry II also instituted the Assize of Clarendon in 1166, which allowed for jury trials and reduced the number of trials by combat.

When Henry II reformed English civil procedure in the Assize of Clarendon in 1166, trial by jury became available, and lawyers, guarding the safety of the lives and limbs of their clients, steered people away from the wager of battle.

In the Assize of Clarendon, enacted in 1166 and the first great legislative act in the reign of the English Angevin King Henry II, the law of the land required that: " anyone, who shall be found, on the oath of the aforesaid jury, to be accused or notoriously suspect of having been a robber or murderer or thief, or a receiver of them ... be taken and put to the ordeal of water.

The Assize of Ultram, especially as defined in the Constitutions of Clarendon, 1164, gave the Crown a chance to clarify difficult questions of ownership and duty in a non-religious, secular court.

::* Assize of Clarendon, 1166 act taken by King Henry II of England

King Henry II instituted the custom of having judges ride around the countryside (" ride circuit ") each year to hear cases, rather than forcing everyone to bring their cases to London ( see Assize of Clarendon ).

The Assize of Northampton, largely based on the Assize of Clarendon of 1166, is among a series of measures taken by King Henry II of England that solidified the rights of the knightly tenants and made all possession of land subject to and guaranteed by royal law.

Magna Carta and the Assize of Clarendon provided for the trial of serious criminal cases on circuit.

It was the difficulty in using the longbow which led various monarchs of England to issue instructions encouraging their ownership and practice, including the Assize of Arms of 1252 and King Edward III's declaration of 1363: " Whereas the people of our realm, rich and poor alike, were accustomed formerly in their games to practise archery – whence by God's help, it is well known that high honour and profit came to our realm, and no small advantage to ourselves in our warlike enterprises ... that every man in the same country, if he be able-bodied, shall, upon holidays, make use, in his games, of bows and arrows ... and so learn and practise archery.

" " Keeping the pleas " was an administrative task, while " holding the pleas " was a judicial one that was not assigned to the locally resident coroner but left to judges who traveled around the country holding Assize Courts.

That original monument was bombed and heavily damaged in 1840 ( reputedly by Irish-Canadian terrorist Benjamin Lett although a subsequent Assize failed to confirm this ).

His largest single commission was a programme of architectural sculptures for the Manchester Assize Courts, built in Manchester from 1859 through 1864.

This is partly because until 1835 Lancaster Castle was the only Assize Court in the entire county and covered rapidly growing industrial centres including Manchester and Liverpool.

Assize courts were held in Abingdon from 1570 but in the 17th century it was vying with Reading for County Town status.

According to the Assize Roll of the 14th century, Burhou was a rabbit warren, and a refuge for fishermen.

They were imprisoned at Hertford gaol, although the women were later acquitted ( Nott was released at the next Assize ).

As the central courts only sat for three months of the year, the rest of his time was spent on Assize when his work at All Souls permitted.

In May 1747 Hopkins was first appointed as a Justice of the Rhode Island Superior Court, whose long title was the " Superior Court of Judicature, Court Of Assize, and General Gaol Delivery.

Both of Carr's buildings were designed in a distinctive neoclassical style ; the Assize Court building was particularly praised at the time as being " a superb building of the Ionic order ".

Although Appleby was the county town of Westmorland, the former county council sat in Kendal, even though the Assize Courts were in Appleby.

Cases became so complicated that a special assize, the Assize of Utrum was established in the middle of the 12th century.

Sheppard was imprisoned in Newgate Prison pending his trial at the next Assize of oyer and terminer.

In 1795 Arnold was named the Chief Justice of Rhode Island's Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize and General Gaol Delivery.

In January 1938, he was asked to act as a Commissioner of Assize to open the Assize Court in Aylesbury, dealing with an average of ten cases a day.

The Crown Court was established in 1972 by the Courts Act 1971 to replace the courts of Assize and Quarter Sessions.

They could try and decide many serious crimes, including treason and murder, which normally could only be heard and determined in a Court of Assize, and in view of the special powers of the liberty justices, a Judge of Assize had no power to act in the Soke of Peterborough.

Soon afterwards he was commissioned to act as Justice of Assize on the western circuit, becoming in 1513 judge of the Court of Common Pleas.

As an emergency measure, John recreated a version of Henry II's Assize of Arms, with each shire creating a structure to mobilise local levies.

During the reign of Henry III the Assize of Arms of 1252 required that all " citizens, burgesses, free tenants, villeins and others from 15 to 60 years of age " should be armed.

Charles Moore Watson ( 1844 – 1916 ) proposes an alternate etymology: The Assize of Weights and Measures ( also known as Tractatus de Ponderibus et Mensuris ), one of the statutes of uncertain date from the reign of either Henry III or Edward I, thus before 1307, specifies " troni ponderacionem "— which the Public Record Commissioners translates as " troy weight ".

The oldest known source for the expression " baker's dozen " dates to the 13th century in one of the earliest English statutes, instituted during the reign of Henry III ( 1216 – 1272 ), called the Assize of Bread and Ale.

These early charters were confirmed by several succeeding kings, Henry VI granting in addition Assize of Bread and Ale and other privileges.

The no longer applicable right to keep and bear arms had originated in England during the reign of Henry II with the 1181 Assize of Arms, and developed as part of Common Law.

::* Assize of Northampton, additional legal measures taken by Henry II of England

The laws were in part codified under the Assize of the Forest ( 1184 ) of Henry II.