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Updated: June 20, 2025
All fines made with us unjustly and against the law of the land, and all amercements, imposed unjustly and against the law of the land, shall be entirely remitted, or else it shall be done concerning them according to the decision of the five and twenty barons whom mention is made below in the clause for securing the pease, or according to the judgment of the majority of the same, along with the aforesaid Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, if he can be present, and such others as he may wish to bring with him for this purpose, and if he cannot be present the business shall nevertheless proceed without him, provided always that if any one or more of the aforesaid five and twenty barons are in a similar suit, they shall be removed as far as concerns this particular judgment, others being substituted in their places after having been selected by the rest of the same five and twenty for this purpose only, and after having been sworn.
The express provisions of Magna Carta, before adverted to, that no amercements, or fines, should be imposed upon. freemen, merchants, or villeins, "but by the oath of honest men of the neighborhood," and "according to the degree of the crime," and that "earls and barons shout not be amerced but by their peers, and according to the quality of the offence," proves that, at least, there was no common law fixing the amount of fines, or, if there were, that it was to be no longer in force.
A freeman shall not be amerced for a slight offense, except in accordance with the degree of the offense; and for a grave offense he shall be amerced in accordance with the gravity of the offense, yet saving always his "contentment"; and a merchant in the same way, saving his "merchandise"; and a villein shall be amerced in the same way, saving his "wainage" if they have fallen into our mercy: and none of the aforesaid amercements shall be imposed except by the oath of honest men of the neighborhood.
All fines made with us unjustly and against the law of the land, and all amercements imposed unjustly and against the law of the land, shall be entirely remitted, or else it shall be done concerning them according to the decision of the five-and-twenty barons of whom mention is made below in the clause for securing the peace, or according to the judgment of the majority of the same, along with the aforesaid Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, if he can be present, and such others as he may wish to bring with him for this purpose, and if he cannot be present the business shall nevertheless proceed without him, provided always that if any one or more of the aforesaid five-and-twenty barons are in a similar suit, they shall be removed as far as concerns this particular judgment, others being substituted in their places after having been selected by the rest of the same five-and-twenty for this purpose only, and after having been sworn.
Reeve means to be understood that, in the hundred court, and court-leet, the jurors were the judges, as he declares them to have been in the county court; otherwise the "bailiff" or "steward" must have been judge. The jurors were sometimes called " assessors," because they assessed, or determined the amount of fines and amercements to be imposed. "The barons of the Hundred" were the freeholders.
To them may be added miscellaneous amercements, for trespasses of divers kinds." 1 Maddox' History of the Exchequer, 542. Coke, in his exposition of the words legem terrae, gives quite in detail the principles of the common law governing arrests, and takes it for granted that the words "nisi per legem terre" are applicable to arrests, as well as to the indictment, &c. 2 inst., 51, 52.
There were other provisions made in the Great Charter that went deeper than the feudal tenure, and affected the whole body of the civil government. A great part of the king's revenue then consisted in the fines and amercements which were imposed in his courts. A fine was paid there for liberty to commence or to conclude a suit.
He raised money by forced loans; he compelled the judges to expound the law according to his own prejudices or caprice; he required the former adherents of Gloucester to purchase and repurchase charters of pardon; and, that he might obtain a more plentiful harvest of fines and amercements, put at once seventeen counties out of the protection of the law, under the pretence that they had favored his enemies.
Coke attempts to show that there is a distinction between amercements and fines admitting that amercements must be fixed by one's peers, but, claiming that, fines may be fixed by the government.
It is also of a piece with his pretence that there was a difference between fine and amercement, and that fines might be imposed by the king, and that juries were required only for fixing amercements. These are some of the innumerable frauds by which the English people have been cheated out of the trial by jury. Ex uno disce omnes. From one judge learn the characters of all.
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