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Assize of Clarendon did not lead to this change immediately, however; recourse to trial by combat was not officially rescinded until 1819.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