Assize of Clarendon - Effects of The Assize

Effects of The Assize

These proceedings did much to transfer power out of the hands of local barons and into the hands of the royal court and its judges. In 1215, moreover, the Fourth Lateran Council forbade clergymen of the Church from participating in trial by ordeal. After this date, trials after indictment by the grand jury were conducted by juries as well.

The large changes wrought in the English system of justice did not go unchallenged. The dispute over jurisdiction over the one-sixth of the population of England who were clergy was the chief grievance between the King and Becket. Disgruntled peers attempted to undo Henry's reforms by the Magna Carta forced on King John, but by that time the reforms had progressed too far — and their superiority over the system they had replaced was too obvious — for the forces of reaction to gain much ground. Henry II's reforms laid the groundwork for the system of trials in common law.

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