The first mention of the name Pensans is in the Assize Roll of 1284, and the first mention of the actual church that gave Penzance its name, is from a manuscript written by William Borlase in 1750:

It received its name because it was believed to have been associated with a trial at the Assize Court at Oxford Castle.

The Black Assize is a name given to multiple deaths in the city of Oxford in England between July 6 and August 12, 1577.

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.

Following the Assize held at Oxford in 1577, later deemed the Black Assize, over 300 died from Epidemic typhus, including Sir Robert Bell Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer.

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

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

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 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 as trial by ordeal or trial by battle to an evidentiary model, in which evidence and inspection was made by laymen.

The term is believed to have originated in the 19th century, and is possibly derived from the Home Circuit of the itinerant Assize Court.

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.

His last work, from a design by Bunbury, is entitled Interior of a Barber's Shop in Assize Time, and is dated 1811.

The centralised English customs system can be traced to the Winchester Assize of 1203-4, in the reign of King John, from which time customs were to be collected and paid to the State Treasury.

* Review of the Statutes and Ordinances of Assize which have been established in England from the 4th year of King John, 1202, to the 37th of his present Majesty ( London, 1801 ), a work of some historical research.

This dates from the mid 16th century but in the 17th century Assize Courts met here to discuss criminal cases.

Assize courts were held in the hall around 1605, and John Wesley preached from a pulpit stone on the open ground floor in 1748.

To the original list of 50, 000 records, these additions come as a windfall, arising from the availability of previously closed archival resources and the re-examination of conventional transportation records such as Assize Court records, Circuit Court records, and the quaintly-named Sheriffs ' Cravings, to which can be added newspapers and printed memoirs.

Scholarly reviews of the Old Bailey Sessions Papers and Assize records from the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I have shown that women granted such reprieves were often subsequently granted pardons or had their sentences commuted to transportation.

Illustration of the Assize courts from Charles Eastlake's History of the Gothic Revival.

Adam Hepburn of Dunsyre is one of the several illustrious jurors on an Assize, 5 March 1470 / 1, which acquitted Andrew Ker of Cessford of aiding and abetting James Douglas, 3rd Earl of Angus " traitor from England within Scotland ", for his association with Robert Boyd, 1st Lord Boyd after he was declared a rebel, and other accusations, all of which Ker had denied.

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.

* 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.

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.

Over fifty prisoners condemned at the Bodmin Assize Court were hanged at the prison.

During the Lent Assize Court held at Taunton ( 1730 ) typhus caused the death of the Lord Chief Baron, as well as the High Sheriff, the sergeant, and hundreds of others.

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.

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 ".

The last commission gave to the justices of the liberty, power to enquire more fully "... by the oath of good and lawful men of the Liberty of Peterborough, by whom the truth of the matter may be better known and by other ways, means and methods by which they shall or better know, of the treasons ... insurrections ... rebellions, counterfeitings, clippings, wastings, false comings ... murders, felonies, manslaughters ... and many other grave offences mentioned therein which in other counties are only triable by a Judge of Assize, and the Justices are commanded at days appointed for this purpose to make diligent enquiries into and to hear and determine the above mentioned offences.

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

Harold Cooke Gutteridge observed that " at least two of the most experienced Clerks of Assize of the period regarded his as one of the best criminal judges of his generation.