Assize

ASSIZA (Lat it by or near, througb the Fr. us. A writ directed to the sheriff for the recovery of Immovable l real or incorporeal. Littleton § -•'' l. The action or proceedings in court upon such a writ. Magna Carta c. 12; Stat. 13 Edw. I. (Wes i in. -i c. 25; 3 Bla. Com. •"7, 252; Sellon, Pract Introd. xii. Such actions were to be tried by special courts, of which the Judicial officers were justices of i See Courts of Assize and Nisi Purs. This form of remedy Is said to have been introduced by the parliament of Northampton (or Nottingham) a. D. 1176, for the purpose of trying titles to land in a more certain and expeditious manner before comners appointed by the crown than before the suitors in the county court of the king's Justiciars in the Aula Regis. The action Is properly a mixed action, whereby the plaintiff recovers his land and damages for the injury sustained by the disseisin. The value of the action as a means for the recovery of land led to its general adoption for that purpose, those who had suffered injury not really amounting to a disseisin alleging a disseisin to entitle themselves to the remedy. The scope of the remedy was also extended so as to allow the recovery of incorporeal hereditaments, as franchises, estovers, etc. It gave place to the action of ejectment, and is now abolished, having been previously almost. If not quite, entirely disused. Stat. 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 27, § 36. Stearns, Real Act. 1S7. A jury summoned by virtue of a writ of assize. Such juries were said to be either magna (grand), consisting of sixteen members and serving to determine the right of property, or parva (petit), conisting of twelve and serving to determine the right to possession. Mirror of Just. lib. 2. This sense is said by Littleton and Blackstone to be the original meaning of the word; Littleton § 234; 3 Bla. Com. 1S3. Coke explains it as denoting originally a session of justices; and this explanation is sanctioned by the etymology of the word. Co. Lltt. 153 b. It seems, however, to have been early used in all the senses here given. The recognitors of assize (the jurors) had the power of deciding, upon their own knowledge, without the examination of witnesses, where the issue was joined on the very point of the assize; but collateral matters were tried either by a jury or by the recognitors acting as a jury, in which latter case it was said to be turned into a jury (assisa vertitur in juratam). Booth, Real Act. 213; Stearns, Real Act. 187; 3 Bla. Com. 402. The term Is no longer used in England to denote a jury. The assizes are: The Grand Assi/e which provides a machinery for trying disputed claims to property; and possessory as for trying disputed claims t. > seisin or possession, l Boldsw. Hist E. L. 149. See Grand Assizk. The verdict or judgment of the jurors or liters of assize; 3 Bla. Com.."iT. 59. A court composed of an assembly of knights and other substantia] men. with the baron or justice, in a certain place, at an An ordinance or statute. Littleton § 234; Reg. Orig. 239. Anything reduced to a certainty in respect to number, quantity, quality, weight, measure, etc. 2 Bla. Com. 42; Cowell; Spelman, Gloss. Assisa. As to this use of the term, see Provisions. See the title immediately following. In Scotch Law. The jury, consisting of fifteen men, in criminal cases tried in the court of justiciary. Paterson, Comp.

In old English law. To fix; to

6 Originally, an assembly me for the purpose of ascertaining somethitij judicially: a jury, or court; a session or sit ting; then the place where, as also the tim ■when, the session was held, the writ unde which it convened, the finding or resolution and the proceedings as a whole. Hence — i regulation, an ordinance, a statute, — some thing determined and established; a tax o tribute of a definite amount; also, the reduc ing a thing to certainty — in number, quan tity, quality, weight, measure, time, place. At first, the jury who tried a cause, " sitting tc gether" for that purpose. Then, by a figure, th 1 Dudley v. Easton, 104 U. S. 103 (1881), Waite, C. J ' 1 Greenl. Ev. §§ 190, 172. 3 L. assistere, to approach; ad-stare, to stand by. < Terrell v. Allison, 21 Wall. 291 (1874), cases. Field, J. Howard v. Milwaukee, &c. E. Co., 101 U. S. 849 (18791 Boyd V. United States, 116 id. 625 (1886). •2 Jones, Mort. § 1663; Watkins v. Jerman, 36 Ear 467 (1887), cases. « P. assise, assembly— of judges; decree; impost court or jurisdiction w Mch summoned the jury by a commission of assize. Hence, the judicial assemblage held by the king's commission in the various counties were (and still are) termed, in common speech, '^the assizes." By still another figure, an action for recovering possession of lands — because the sheriff summons a jui'y or assize.^ Designates the court, thp place, or the time where the judges of the superior courts of Westminster try questions of fact, issuing out of those comis, ready for trial by jury. "The assizes" are the sittings of the judges at the various places they visit on their circuits, four times a year in vacation. "Assize " also sometimes denotes a jury, and sometimes a writ.' ' ' Assizes "is the word most in use in modem books. It often signifies a single court,

Eng. law. A particular court where writs of assize and other causes were decided. Vide Dane’s Ab. Index, h. t.; Bract. lib. 3; Merl. Reépert. h. t.