Literary notes about Assize (AI summary)
Literary authors use the word "assize" to evoke a world of formalized justice and historical legal practices. It appears as a descriptor for both the physical court sessions where serious crimes and civil disputes were adjudicated ([1], [2], [3]) and as a symbol of the authoritative, sometimes theatrical, nature of judgment in society ([4], [5], [6]). In some texts, "assize" anchors the narrative in the rigid, traditional world of law—for instance, referencing procedures like the assize of bread and ale ([7], [8]) or the evolution of trial methods ([9])—while elsewhere it underscores the dramatic tension of public accountability in both judicial and metaphorical settings ([10], [11], [12]).
- During the summer assize, almost every considerable town and circuit had its state trial.
— from A Popular History of Ireland : from the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics — Complete by Thomas D'Arcy McGee - The state of the Criminal law in early times might be shown from the Eyre rolls and Assize rolls.
— from Frederick William Maitland, Downing Professor of the Laws of England A Biographical Sketch by H. A. L. (Herbert Albert Laurens) Fisher - In the assize court the evidence I could give against you would put you into a term of penal servitude—you understand?
— from As We Forgive Them by William Le Queux - So the long night hours passed slowly away and the first morning of the Bloody Assize of Taunton grew rosy in the east.
— from Barbara Winslow, Rebel by Beth Ellis - Instead of a garden of delight, he finds a sort of assize court in perpetual session.
— from Italian Hours by Henry James - The people down in that part of the country remember it to this day as The Bloody Assize.
— from A Child's History of England by Charles Dickens - "Avocation, affected with a public interest." Bakers, statute of ( see Assize of Bread and Ale ).
— from Popular Law-making A study of the origin, history, and present tendencies of law-making by statute by Frederic Jesup Stimson - Thus, in the assize of bread and ale, of the 51st of Henry III.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith - The assize ultimately evolved into the jury of verdict, which replaced ordeal, compurgation, and battle as the method of finding the truth.
— from Our Legal Heritage: The First Thousand Years: 600 - 1600 King Aethelbert - Queen Elizabeth by S. A. Reilly - But he'll be hanged to a dead certainty, or I don't know an assize jury!"
— from Charles Tyrrell; or, The Bitter Blood. Volumes I and II by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James - If the country folks of those assize towns on his circuit could see him now!
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens - I thought of other women, too: "friends," who after seeing me for fifteen years in my salon now find it "amusing" to watch me in a Court of Assize....
— from My Memoirs by Marguerite Steinheil
