a fixed place. This had already been to some extent the practice when
this class of cases was heard; it was now made the rule. From this
time suitors in this court were not put to the expense and
inconvenience of following the king from place to place.
Chapters XVIII. and XIX. deal with the three petty assizes, three
kinds of cases regarding disputes about the possession of land. These
must be heard in the county courts before two visiting justices and
four knights of the shire. The hardship of attendance at the county
courts was to some extent obviated.
Chapters XX. to XXII. regulate the amount of fines imposed for
offences against the law. Property necessary for one's livelihood must
not be taken. The fines must only be imposed by the oath of honest men
of the neighbourhood. In the same way earls and barons must only be
fined by their peers, and a similar privilege is extended to the
clergy, who, moreover, were not to be fined in accordance with the
value of their benefices, but only of their other property. It should
be noticed that trial by one's peers, as understood in Magna Carta, is
not confined to the nobility; in every class of society an accused man
is punished in accordance with the verdict of his peers, or equals.