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noun
Assize  n.  
1.
An assembly of knights and other substantial men, with a bailiff or justice, in a certain place and at a certain time, for public business. (Obs.)
2.
(Law)
(a)
A special kind of jury or inquest.
(b)
A kind of writ or real action.
(c)
A verdict or finding of a jury upon such writ.
(d)
A statute or ordinance in general. Specifically: (1) A statute regulating the weight, measure, and proportions of ingredients and the price of articles sold in the market; as, the assize of bread and other provisions; (2) A statute fixing the standard of weights and measures.
(e)
Anything fixed or reduced to a certainty in point of time, number, quantity, quality, weight, measure, etc.; as, rent of assize. Note: (This term is not now used in England in the sense of a writ or real action, and seldom of a jury of any kind, but in Scotch practice it is still technically applied to the jury in criminal cases.)
(f)
A court, the sitting or session of a court, for the trial of processes, whether civil or criminal, by a judge and jury.
(g)
The periodical sessions of the judges of the superior courts in every county of England for the purpose of administering justice in the trial and determination of civil and criminal cases; usually in the plural.
(h)
The time or place of holding the court of assize; generally in the plural, assizes.
3.
Measure; dimension; size. (In this sense now corrupted into size) "An hundred cubits high by just assize." (Formerly written, as in French, assise)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Assize" Quotes from Famous Books



... are Higginbottom, Rowbotham, Sidebottom. The first element of Shufflebotham is, in the Lancashire Assize Rolls (1176-1285), spelt Schyppewalle- and Schyppewelle-, where schyppe is for sheep, still so pronounced in dialect. Tarbottom, earlier Tarbutton, is corrupted from ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... gospel of salvation to the world. Jesus is now on the throne of His glory, but sooner or later He will come again to wind up the present dispensation and to be the Judge of the quick and the dead at a grand assize. ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell

... seemed for a time to have rallied all her strength, and attended parties and kept her place at the opera with a regularity which argued a complete recovery. Antoinette Dupres was admired and nattered; the season was unusually gay. What if Death had so lately held his awful assize in the city? Bereaved families wrapped their sable garments about lonely hearts, and wept over the countless mounds in the cemetery; but the wine-cup and song and dance went their accustomed rounds in fashionable quarters, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... of Cambridge, Eng., an officer appointed to regulate the assize of bread, the true gauge of ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... the courts of equity, held by the chancellor, the master of the rolls, and the master of requests; through the half-administrative, half-judicial bodies, the council of the north and the council of the marches of Wales, and through the circuit courts of assize. Much was exercised through higher and lower administrative officers, through the Exchequer, and through lower offices such as the ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... said; "but it is a very great mistake to suppose that it will establish itself without extraneous aid. You will have the Attorney-General against you, and you must have some one of the same caliber on your side. The old saying, 'Truth will out,' does not apply in an assize court. It requires to be dragged out. I think you will do well to accept my services. Roberts holds himself open to take the brief for your defence, if I ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... finger-tips, and white As all her thoughts; in shape like shields of prize, As if before young Violet's dreaming eyes Still blazed the two great Theban bucklers bright That swayed the random of that furious fight Where Palamon and Arcite made assize For Emily; fresh, crisp as her replies, That, not with sting, but pith, do oft invite More trial of the tongue; simple, like her, Well fitting lowlihood, yet fine as well, — The queen's no finer; rich (though gossamer) In help to him they came ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... A Judge of Assize absolutely fined the High Sheriff of a county one hundred pounds for the mingled contempt shown in neglecting to provide him with an escort of javelin-men and introducing the irrepressible "Right tooral lol looral" into a speech delivered at the opening of circuit. Nor was the song all that was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... generous piece of imprudence. To renounce the world and rank, and fortune, and consideration for her lover's sake, and that in the face of all Paris, is as fine a coup d'etat for a woman as that barber's knife-thrust, which so affected Canning in a court of assize. Not one of the women who blame the Duchess would make a declaration worthy of ancient times. It is heroic of Mme de Langeais to proclaim herself so frankly. Now there is nothing left to her but to love Montriveau. There must be something ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... The abbot will in like manner send it to Ronald Gray of Scoulag. So, in turn, will it pass round to each of the twelve wise ruthmen, calling them one and all to hasten to the Seat of Law on the great plain beside Ascog mere, that they may there in solemn assize pronounce judgment upon the traitor who ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... Queen's Bench is had at nisi prius, unless it be of such consequence as to merit a trial at bar, which is invariably had when the prisoner is tried for any capital offence in that court. But before the ordinary courts of assize, the sheriff, by virtue of a general precept directed to him beforehand, returns to the court a panel of not less than forty-eight nor more than seventy-two persons, unless the judges of assize direct a greater or smaller number to be summoned. When the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... so strange and grotesque a proceeding would have excited laughter, but here, in this gloomy chamber, the anteroom of the assize court, an otherwise trivial act is fraught with serious import. Nothing astonishes; and should a smile threaten to curve one's lips, it ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... county and assize town of Kent, appears to be a thriving and solid-looking place, as there are several paper-mills, saw-mills, stone quarries, and other indications of prosperity. There are but few historical associations connected with it, as Maidstone "has lived a quiet life." Sir Thomas Wyatt's ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... the rioters having been apprehended, the magistrates had a busy week of it, and large numbers of prisoners were committed for trial. A Special Assize was opened at Warwick, on August 2nd, before Mr. Justice Littledale. Three men, named respectively, Howell, Roberts, and Jones, and a boy named Aston, were found guilty of arson, and condemned to ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards

... little to enjoy. Take one day of my life as a specimen; the rest are mostly alike. The sheriff's trumpets are playing; one, some tune of which I know nothing, and the other no tune at all. I am obliged to turn out at eight. It is the first day of the Assize, so there is some chance of a brief, being a new place. I push my way into court through files of attorneys, as civil to the rogues as possible, assuring them there is plenty of room, though I am at the very moment gasping for breath wedged-in ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... course—brought in a verdict of manslaughter, and he was sentenced to three months in the common jail. The plea in his behalf was that she was a drunkard. The poor fellow had only gone a little too far; the court must be merciful. At this same assize, there was a man indicted for theft. He had made good his entrance into a jeweler's shop, and stolen therefrom a watch. The theft was proved, and the culprit sent to the penitentiary for three years. Query: Which was the greater crime, killing a ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... think a man who will give a bribe won't take one? If you would be served faithfully, you must choose faithfully, and give your vote on no consideration but merit; for my part, I would as soon suborn an evidence at an assize as a vote at ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... Jeffreys (bloody assize) bereavement (too heavy a sob) parental grief mad son MADISON Maderia frustrating first-rate wine (defeating) feet toe the line row MONROE row boat steamer side-splitting (divert) annoy harassing HARRISON Old Harry the tempter (the fraud) painted clay baked clay tiles TYLER Wat Tyler poll tax compulsory ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... him and worked with him shall look back with fondness and gratitude most of all to those hours in his college rooms in Trinity, in the long, high dining-room in S. Giles's—the Judges' lodgings—and in the quaint low chamber in Holywell-street, where he fled for refuge when the Judges came to hold assize. ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman

... Newman and Froude went abroad together. On this journey, as he lay becalmed in the straits of Bonifacio, he wrote his immortal hymn, 'Lead, Kindly Light.' He came home assured that he had a work to do. Keble's Assize Sermon on the National Apostasy, preached in July 1833, on the Sunday after Newman's return to Oxford, kindled the conflagration which had been long preparing. Newman conceived the idea of the Tracts for the Times as a means of expressing the feelings and propagating the opinions which ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... his desk and still in his Sunday best. He had taken the flower out of his buttonhole and laid it on a printed notice of the next assize court. She stood looking at him, their faces almost ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... scanned. Though the diocesan, Bishop Mew, took no active part in the petition called a libel, being an extremely aged man, the imprisonment of Ken, so deeply endeared to Hampshire hearts when Canon of Winchester and Rector of Brighstone, and with the Bloody Assize and the execution of Alice Lisle fresh in men's memories, there could not but be ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... mercy; his poor sister coming up all the way from Bourg (a sad journey, poor thing!) to have an interview with the King, who had refused to see her. Last Monday morning, at nine o'clock, an hour before Peytel's breakfast, the Greffier of Assize Court, in company with the Cure of Bourg, waited on him, and informed him that he had only three hours to live. At twelve o'clock, Peytel's head was off his body: an executioner from Lyons had come over the night before, to assist the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... shocked by the verdict and committal of Everard, but is sure that he will be cleared. "He must be cleared," he says, "at any cost." Pending the assize trial, he baptises three unknown babes in Malbourne Church. When asking the name of one of the children in his arms, he is told "Benjamin Lee." His evident deep emotion at this evokes sympathy from ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... I would) exemplify in many, but I will touch no one particularly, sith it is rare to see in any country town (as I said) the assize of bread well kept according to the statute; and yet, if any country baker happen to come in among them on the market day with bread of better quantity, they find fault by-and-by with one thing or other in his stuff, whereby the honest poor man (whom the law of nations do commend, for ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... possible that this part of the province was the home of a Negro who at the age of 101 appeared at the Assize Court at Ottawa in 1867 to give evidence. He was born in the Colony of New York in 1766, had been brought to Upper Canada by his master, a United Empire Loyalist, had fought through the war of 1812 on the British side, was present at the Battles of Chippewa ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... tap of the elder's cane, And his awful periwig I see, And the silver buckles of shoe and knee. Stately and slow, with thoughtful air, His black cap hiding his whitened hair, Walks the Judge of the great Assize, Samuel Sewall the good and wise. His face with lines of firmness wrought, He wears the look of a man unbought, Who swears to his hurt and changes not; Yet, touched and softened nevertheless With the grace of Christian gentleness, The face ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... the commerce of the world to be carried on; St. George's Crescent; noble shops; strange people walking about, an Herculean mulatto, for example; the old china shop; cups with Chinese characters upon them; an horrible old Irishwoman with naked feet; Assize ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... him, 'You were yesterday, Sir, in remarkably good humour[753]: but there was nothing to offend you, nothing to produce irritation or violence. There was no bold offender. There was not one capital conviction. It was a maiden assize. You ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... The wide assize court swam before Paul's eyes in a red mist; he indistinctly saw closely-packed faces gazing down on himself or on his father; then he had to leave ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann

... means satisfied in my own mind that an intimate acquaintance with M'Wilkin and his previous pursuits would be a strong recommendation in his favour to any possible assize, I thought it best to follow his instructions, and managed my challenges so well that I secured a majority of Hawickers. The jury being sworn in, the cause proceeded; and certainly, before three witnesses ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... only-begotten Son of God' (John 3:18). It is true, there is no man more at ease in his mind, with such ease as it is, than the man that hath not closed with the Lord Jesus, but is shut up in unbelief. O! but that is the man that stands convict before God, and that is bound over to the great assize; that is the man whose sins are still his own, and upon whom the wrath of God abideth (v 36); for the ease and peace of such, though it keep them far from fear, is but like to that of the secure thief, that is ignorant that the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... said Philadelphia stiffly, 'and the coach road is only four miles away. One can go anywhere from the Green. I went to the Assize Ball at Lewes last year.' She spun round and took a few dancing steps, but stopped with her hand to ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling

... certainly dismissed a project, with which he had often played in South Africa, of erecting a public drinking-fountain on Mount Folly, as the citizens of Tregarrick call the slope in front of the County Assize Hall. ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... treason, he continued the game to the end; but Aske was an honest man, and his execution, condemned though he was by a jury, was a violent act of injustice.[998] Norfolk was sent to the North on a Bloody Assize,[999] and if neither he nor the King was a Jeffreys, the rebellion was stamped out with a good deal of superfluous cruelty. Henry was resolved to do the work once and for all, and he based his ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... Christendom, of Gabriel playing a trumpet solo at the end of the world, and a huge squad of angelic police darting about the four quarters of heaven, gathering the past and present inhabitants of the earth, while the Judge and his officers take their places in the Universal Assize, instead of being received as sound theology, should be held as moral symbol. Taken in any other way, it sinks into gross mythology. Can any one fail to see that this picture of the Last Judgment is the result ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... may put the question, why respect for the Sabbath is so peremptorily imposed when Sunday is ignored among several of the Allied Powers. In France Christians are not dispensed from appearing on Sundays before the assize courts. Besides, Poland is further obliged not to order or authorize elections on a Saturday. What precautions these are in favor of the Jewish religion as compared with the legislation of many Allied states which have no such ordinances in favor of Catholicism! Is the same ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... celebrated Mathew Hopkins before referred to. He was appointed to the work by Parliament during the time of the Commonwealth, and styled himself 'witch-finder general.' Hopkins travelled round the country, much like an assize judge, putting up at the principal inns, and at the expense of the local authorities. His charge was twenty shillings a visit, whether he found witches or not. If he discovered any, there was a further charge of twenty shillings for every witch brought to execution. His favourite method of detection ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... of private import:—to wit, of my kinsman the Earl of Arundel, who, as 'tis rumoured, shall this next month be tried by the Star Chamber, and, as is thought, if he 'scape with life, shall be heavily charged in goods [Note 1]: or the Black Assize at Exeter this last year, whereby, through certain Portugals that were prisoners on trial, the ill smells did so infect the Court, [Note 2] that many died thereof—of the common people very many, and divers ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... Satisfaction to consider the universal and visible Reformation in the Lives and Morals even of our common People, clearly evinced in this, that (thank Heaven) fewer legal Punishments succeed an entire Circuit, in our happy Days, than did a single Assize in former Reigns: And, without Question, this Reformation must still rise higher, in Proportion to the Lenity of our worthy Legislature, and wise Indulgence of our landed Men, who must certainly find it more conducive to the Welfare of the State, and to their own Strength, Honour, ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke

... only have I failed to trace the records of the Assize at which the Perrys were tried, but the newspapers of 1660 seem to contain no account of the trial (as they do in the case of the Drummer of Tedworth, 1663), and Miss E.M. Thompson, who kindly undertook the ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... and illegality. In the movement, which resulted in the governor's recall and impeachment, there was doubtless the usual amount of exaggeration—represented by the violent language of one of Carlyle's minor biographers: "There were more innocent people slain than at Jeffreys' Bloody Assize"; "The massacre of Glencoe was nothing to it"; "Members of Christian Churches were flogged," etc. etc.—but among its leaders there were so many men of mark and celebrity, men like John S. Mill, T. Hughes, John Bright, Fawcett, Cairnes, Goldwin Smith, Herbert ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... somewhat redundant to an English eye, that the jury is an institution which has only been naturalized in France within the present century; that it is even now exclusively applied to those criminal causes which come before the courts of assize, or to the prosecutions of the public press; and that the judges and counsellors of the numerous local tribunals of France—forming a body of many thousand judicial functionaries—try all civil causes, appeals from criminal causes, and minor ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al

... judicature, judiciary, forum, mall; courtyard, quadrangle, cortile; jurisdiction; royal household, princely retinue; assize. Associated Words: curialistic, aulic, judicial, judiciary, forensic, docket, tipstaff, beadle, apparitor, summoner, dies ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... friends—yet still his spirit drooped; the gloom of imprisonment, the idea of danger, the ignominy of public execution and all the horrors of innocent conviction, gradually wore away his mental strength; and when the assize time approached, he was but a thin shadow of the former bluff, healthy Owen Duncan. In so short a time as this, can care and harrowing thought exercise its influence on ...
— Ellen Duncan; And The Proctor's Daughter - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... where the party, either plaintiff or defendant, is well possessed of this world's goods, is usually tainted. In no place on earth can money work more marvels than in a court of law. Witnesses who make testimony a profession for big fees appear in every Assize court in the world. And some of them are, alas! experts. True it is that every man has his price, and the more so in these hard, post-war days of riot and ruin. Justice and brotherly love departed with the Victorian era. The old game of "Beat-your-neighbour-out-of-doors," played by our ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux

... are rare the passion for such scenes is proportionally stronger, and perhaps there is no periodical event which so deeply stirs the agricultural interest—speaking socially, and not politically—as the advent of the Judges of Assize. ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... entertained, that after the slaughter of the battle-field was over, the prisoners captured would have a fair trial and time for their defence. He little dreamed of the cruel way Colonel Kirk and his lambs would treat those placed in their power, or the bloody assize under Judge Jeffreys. As soon as the letters were finished, he asked the Cornet to give his promised pass to the worthy farmer, as if it were a matter of no ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston

... must have at the conclusion of any work he has undertaken. A common and very simple reason for this disappointment is that most of us overrate our capacity. We expect more of ourselves than we have any right to, in virtue of our endowments. The figurative descriptions of the last Grand Assize must no more be taken literally than the golden crowns, which we do not expect or want to wear on our heads, or the golden harps, which we do not want or expect to hold in our hands. Is it not too true that many religious sectaries think of the last ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... of Castaing commenced before the Paris Assize Court on November 10, 1823. He was charged with the murder of Hippolyte Ballet, the destruction of a document containing the final dispositions of Hippolyte's property, and with the murder of Auguste Ballet. The three charges were to ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... neighbour. What would Sir Roger de Coverley be without his follies and his charming little brain-cracks?(93) If the good knight did not call out to the people sleeping in church, and say "Amen" with such a delightful pomposity: if he did not make a speech in the assize-court a propos de bottes, and merely to show his dignity to Mr. Spectator:(94) if he did not mistake Madam Doll Tearsheet for a lady of quality in Temple Garden: if he were wiser than he is: if he had not his humour to salt his life, and were but a mere English gentleman and game-preserver—of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... pusillanimity, such time-serving, he—Reginald Sawyer—scorned to be guilty. The higher placed the sinner, the more heinous the sin.—He would deal faithfully with all, since not only was the salvation of each one in jeopardy, but his own salvation was in peril likewise, inasmuch as, at the dread Last Assize, he would be required to give account of his stewardship in respect ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... he sat and thought. He held a solemn assize within his own breast, and marshalled all he could remember as witnesses for and against her. Much in her conduct that at first had puzzled him now grew clear in view of her purpose to victimize him, ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... say that for certain? Many a time have I wondered what came over me in that hour. I can only guess.... Nobody belonging to me had ever been rack-rented. I had never seen any of my own people evicted. No great judge of assize had ever looked down on me from his bench to the dock and addressed to me stern words. I had never heard the clang behind me of a prison door. No royal hand of an Irish constabularyman had ever brought a baton down on my ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly

... Lord have mercy on your soul!" The deep-pitched words fell slowly on Marcella's ears, as she sat leaning forward in the gallery of the Widrington Assize Court. Women were sobbing beside and behind her. Minta Hurd, to her left, lay in a half-swoon against her sister-in-law, her face buried in Ann's black shawl. For an instant after Hurd's death sentence had been spoken Marcella's nerves ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... conspicuous by its absence. And as for Mr. Ruskin's world's being a place—his world of art—where we may take life easily, woe to the luckless mortal who enters it with any such disposition. Instead of a garden of delight, he finds a sort of assize court in perpetual session. Instead of a place in which human responsibilities are lightened and suspended, he finds a region governed by a kind of Draconic legislation. His responsibilities indeed are tenfold increased; the gulf ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... the scenes and prompting her to amuse us. He always had that funny way of grimacing and conversing with himself gaily, whilst Juno indulged in her talkative fits. He admired his old partner hugely. Once, when travelling with my father, he heard at an Assize some great lawyer make a speech, and said, ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... was not registered. In 1611 he purchased the copyright in the books of John Windet for 13s. 40d., but three of them the Company added to its stock, with the undertaking that Stansby should always have the printing of them. One of these books was The Assize of Bread. On the 23rd February 1625 the whole of William East's copies, including music, was assigned over to him. This list of books is the longest to be found in the registers, and covers every ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer

... The Duchess is not easy to get on with, and he looked devilish wicked at the Mayor's. If the old lady bores him too much, we may still see him some day at the Assize Court, son and grandson of divinities ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... like school-boys released, and rush from the court to enjoy half an hour's holiday before dinner.' This is a sad companionship to get into; yet regularity in attending even an unproductive circuit is necessary to eventual success. The Bar must enter the assize town on the same day, that they may all start fair; they must not live in a hotel, but take lodgings; and they must not, while on the circuit—that is, in their professional character—shake hands ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various

... word Assize here means an assembly of knights or other substantial persons, held at a certain time and place where they sit with the Justice. 'Assisa' or 'Assize' is also taken for the court, place, or time at which the writs of Assize are ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... week, sent messages saying to several of his friends in Annandale and Carrick that he might at any time be among them, and at Dumfries he found many of them prepared to see him. The English justiciaries for the southern district of the conquered kingdom were holding an assize, and at this most of the nobles and principal men of that part were present. Among these were, of course, many of Bruce's vassals; among them also was John Comyn of Badenoch, who held large estates in Galloway, in virtue of which he was ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... is a great difference in circuits. The two northern ones, with their vast populations and immense amount of work, are the bugbear of the puisne judge. The scenery of some of the other circuits is flat, and there is not much amusement going on in the assize towns. But the Southern combines several advantages. It is far from heavy as regards work, the country in many parts is beautiful, and the train-service between the county towns ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward

... their verdict to the judges (who in England are only such of the law, and not of the fact); to convey the condemned to execution, and to dertermine in lesser causes, for the greater are tried by the judges, formerly called travelling judges of assize; these go their circuits through the counties twice every year to hear causes, and pronounce ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... ecclesiasticism, and carried their loyalty to the old Christian culture to the extreme of devotion till they saw in the sacraments the highest good of the soul. It was Keble's "Christian Year" and his "Assize Sermon" that began the Tractarian movement at Oxford which brought to the front himself and such men as Henry Newman and Frederick ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... extremity of the town, if it be assize time, you will see some five hundred persons squatting in the Court-house, or buzzing and talking within; the rest of the respectable quarter of the city is pretty free from anything like bustle. There is no more life in Patrick Street than in Russell Square of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... that a baker, for default in the weight of his bread, " debeat amerciari vel subire judicium pillorie;" that is, ought to be amerced, or suffer the punishment, or judgment, of the pillory. Also that a brewer, for "selling ale contrary to the assize," "debeat amerciari, vel pati judicium tumbrelli "; that is, ought to be amerced, or suffer the punishment, or judgment, of the tumbrel. 51 Henry 3, St. ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner

... sub-tenants who might obey them rather than the king; this enabled the king to hire mercenaries who respected him but not the feudatories. He cashiered all the sheriffs at once, to explode their pretensions to hereditary tenure of their office. By the assize of arms he called the mass of Englishmen to redress the military balance between the barons and the crown. By other assizes he enabled the owners and possessors of property to appeal to the protection of the royal court of justice: instead of trial by battle they could submit their case to a jury ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard

... further of a disquieting nature. To all appearances Stephen's power had not been in the least affected. From the coast he went north to Brampton near Huntingdon, to amuse himself with hunting. There he gave evidence of how strong he felt himself to be, for he held a forest assize and tried certain barons for forest offences. In his Oxford charter he had promised to give up the forests which Henry had added to those of the two preceding kings, but he had not promised to hold no forest assizes, and he could not well surrender them. There was ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... had landed; and the judicial massacre began. The court was hung, by order of the Chief Justice, with scarlet; and this innovation seemed to the multitude to indicate a bloody purpose. It was also rumoured that, when the clergyman who preached the assize sermon enforced the duty of mercy, the ferocious mouth of the Judge was distorted by an ominous grin. These things made men augur ill of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... There is an assize-town in one of the eastern counties which was much distinguished by the Tudor sovereigns, and, in consequence of their favour and protection, attained a degree of importance that surprises ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... even then this difficulty was much lowered to the English, as beyond comparison the most equestrian of nations), that it is possible to imagine a shade of difference as still distinguishing the town-bred man from the rustic; though, considering the multiplied distribution of our assize towns, our cathedral towns, our sea-ports, and our universities, all so many recurring centres of civility, it is not very easy to imagine such a thing in an island no larger than ours. But can any human indulgence be extended to ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... further truth, and a more awful one. They saw that the Lord was actually and practically King of kings and Lord of lords: that as such He could come, and did come at times, rewarding the loyal, putting down the rebellious, and holding high assize from place to place, that He might execute judgment and justice; beholding all the wrong that was done on earth, and coming, as it were, out of His place, at each historic crisis, each revolution in the ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... being received, however, by a gentleman as solemn as the Court of Chancery and as terrible as the Court of Assize, she found an elderly gentleman, of quiet, paternal manners, who held both her hands, and looked as if he was weeping over her bereavement. By long practice this worthy person could always, at a moment's notice, assume the appearance ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... house" is left; it was purchased in 1809 by a stock-broker, who in the following year sold the materials—and so ends the great monastic history of Chertsey. Where are now its spiritualities in Surrey?—its temporalities in Berkshire and Hampshire?—its revenues of Stanwell, and rents of assize?—its spiritualities in Cardiganshire? Alas! they have left no sign, except on the yellow parchment—of rare ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... authority exercised by him who demands obedience. Your lordship might possibly call upon me, using your voice as bishop of the diocese, to abandon altogether the freehold rights which are now mine in this perpetual curacy. The judge of assize, before whom I shall soon stand for my trial, might command me to retire to prison without a verdict given by a jury. The magistrates who committed me so lately as yesterday, upon whose decision in that respect your lordship has taken action against me so quickly, might have equally strained their ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... hall; whilst Bishop Home, who is sometimes credited with this work, most likely only repaired the hall, but tacked on to it the southward structure on pilasters, which shows his arms with the date 1577. The hall of the castle was for a long period used as Assize Courts. The castle was purchased by the Taunton and Somerset Archaeological Society, and is now most appropriately a museum. Taunton has seen many strange sights. The town was owned by the Bishop of Winchester, and the castle had its constable, an office held ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... kinds of bread. A table called the Assize of Bread was set up in every city and town, showing the weight of each kind of loaf according to the law, according as the price of wheat varied from one shilling to twenty shillings per quarter. The weight of the loaves was 'set' each year by the ...
— The Leper in England: with some account of English lazar-houses • Robert Charles Hope

... better out of the way; but all these things were accomplished, and more than the specified time elapsed, when another note came to say that Lacy positively would not let Harry home without seeing his uncle, the great barrister, who lived in the nearest assize town; and the legal protector of Miss Jenny 'thought he ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers

... were most particularly directed. There were magistrates, whose sole business and duty it was to lay in corn for the use of the city; and other magistrates who regulated its price, and fixed also the assize of bread. In the Piraeus there were officers, the chief part of whose duty it was to take care that two parts at least of all the corn brought into the port should be carried to the city. Lysias, in his oration against the corn merchants, gives a curious account of the ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... This little touch, which made the young men jeer and whisper obscenity, brought the water to Manvers' eyes. He heard Gil Perez draw again his whistling breath, and felt him tremble. Directly Manuela was in her place, standing, facing the assize, Gil Perez looked at her, and never took his eyes from her again. She was dressed in black, and her hair was smooth over her ears, knotted neatly on ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... ermine. 'I had meant to wear this myself,' he went on; but stopped all of a sudden at sight of my face, and began to laugh quietly, in a way that made me long to take him by the throat. 'Dear me, dear me! I understand! Association of ideas—Court of Assize, eh? But this is no judicial robe, my friend: it belongs to Father Christmas. Here's his wig now—quite another sort of wig, you perceive—with a holly wreath around it. And here's his beard, beautifully frosted with silver.' He held wig and beard ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... cheek, a husband's base desertion might in time have been forgiven, possibly at least, forgotten; but the first wail from my baby's lips awoke the wolf in me. My wrongs might slumber till that last assize, when the pitying eyes of Christ sum up the record, but hers—have made a hungry panther of my soul. Come, memory, unlock your treasure house, uncoil your spells, chant all your witching strains, and let us see whether the towers of Notre Dame will not tremble ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... gentleman of three hundred pounds a year, who commonly appeared in a plain drab or plush coat, large silver buttons, a jockey cap, and rarely without boots. His travels never exceeded the distance to the county-town, and that only at assize-and session-time, or to attend an election. Once a week he commonly dined at the next market-town with the attorneys and justices. This man went to church regularly, read the weekly journal, settled the parochial disputes between the parish officers at the vestry, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... every village and town, those whose zeal, energy, and devotion to their patriotic work, was as worthy of record, and as heroic in character, as the labors of their sisters in the cities. We cannot record the names of those thousands of noble women, but their record is on high, and in the grand assize, their zealous toil to relieve their suffering brothers, who were fighting or had fought the nation's battles, will be recognized by Him, who regards every such act of love and philanthropy as done ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... wear gloves on the bench. No reason is assigned for this prohibition. Our judges lie under no such restraint; for both they and the rest of the court make no difficulty of receiving gloves from the sheriffs, whenever the session or assize concludes without any one receiving sentence of death, which is called a maiden assize; a custom of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... also a formal pardon or dispensation. After this the archbishop seldom appeared at the council, chiefly on account of his infirmities. He attended the king constantly, however, in his last illness, and performed the ceremony of the coronation of Charles I. His refusal to license the assize sermon preached by Dr Robert Sibthorp at Northampton on the 22nd of February 1626-1627, in which cheerful obedience was urged to the king's demand for a general loan, and the duty proclaimed of absolute non-resistance even to the most arbitrary royal ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... able to judge by his acts. He was evidently a man of strong will, an able administrator and organiser; and he set himself at once, and earnestly, to the establishment of law and order in the conquered territories of the Irish princes. He sent justices of assize throughout Munster and Connaught, reducing the 'countries or regions' into shire-ground, abolishing cuttings, cosheries, spendings, and other customary exactions of the chiefs, by which a complete revolution was effected. ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... absence of widow Hanlon, and the party for which she had been sent. Father Hanratty having left them, they took an early breakfast, and proceeded to Ballynafail—which we choose to designate as the assize town—in order to watch, with disappointed and heavy hearts, the trial of Condy Dalton, in whose fate they felt a deeper interest than the reader ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... because, from his own point of view, his actions, instead of being criminal, have been commendable, and because the multitude and continuity of his offences prove him to have been sincere. And because anointed monarchs are amenable to no human tribunal, save to that terrible assize which the People, bursting its chain from time to time in the course of the ages, sets up for the trial of its oppressors, and which is called Revolution, it is the more important for the great interests of humanity that before the judgment-seat of History ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... July 1833," we read in Cardinal Newman's Apologia, "Mr. Keble preached the assize sermon in the University Pulpit. It was published under the title of National Apostasy. I have ever considered and kept the day as the start of the religious movement ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... to the erection of the handsome Midland Hotel, opposite New Street Station, and the still grander "Grand Hotel," in Colmore Row, opened Feb. 1, 1879. The removal of the County Court to Corporation Street, and the possible future erection of Assize Courts near at hand, have induced some speculators to embark in the erection of yet another extensive establishment, to be called the "Inns of Court Hotel," and in due course of time we shall doubtless have others of a similar character. At any of the above, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... morning of the trial, and the Assize Court was crowded. Before daylight a number of people, hungry for excitement, had hung round the strangers' entrance, and as soon as the doors were opened had rushed with a kind of savage curiosity to the part of the hall where the public was admitted. Long before the trial ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... the friend and minister of justice. He enjoyed the freedom of Newgate and the Old Bailey. He came and went as he liked: he packed juries, he procured bail, he manufactured evidence; and there was scarce an assize or a sessions passed but ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... he went, and from jail he was delivered up to the Judges at Assize, and the Judges sentenced my poor father to death, which was the punishment for burglary in those times, and, for all I know, it may be the same on the ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... less and less likely to be prosecuted, and if they are, they are frequently let off, however flagrant the offence. The average number of acquittals during the last twelve years is twenty-six per cent. A magistrate nowadays is a St. Francis of Assize. ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... lunatico inquirendo" against his Jewish brother, on the ground that the first symptom of insanity is often the delusion that others are insane; and this being so, Doctor Nordau was not a safe subject to be at large. But the Assize of Public Opinion denied the petition, and the dear people bought the book at from three to five dollars a copy. Printed in several languages, its sales have mounted to a hundred thousand volumes, and the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard

... entire population well-clothed, cheerful, and self-supporting in old age; when we see fruit-crops ripening in all security by the roadside, and inquire throughout the length and breadth of the land for a poor-house in vain; when we find judge and jury dismissed at assize after assize because there are no criminals to try, ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... Osman occupied himself by buying salt out of another boat and stowing it away to take up to his family, as it is terribly dear high up the river. At Benisouef we halted to buy meat and bread, it is comme qui dirait an assize town, there is one butcher who kills one sheep a day. I walked about the streets escorted by Omar in front and two sailors with huge staves behind, and created a sensation accordingly. It is a dull little country town ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... Appeal, which visited the district and heard Osman Effendi's appeal against the first verdict, consisted of three Egyptian judges. It is true that the English judge who should have gone on Assize had fallen ill, and there was no other to take his place. But Osman Effendi saw in this too the malevolent hand of the English, who nourished a grudge against him. "How," he said, "can I obtain justice if there is no Englishman on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various

... back to the very beginnings of the University and is first mentioned in 1248, when the Proctors are associated with the Chancellor in the charter of Henry III, which gave the University a right to interfere in the assize of bread and beer. ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells

... has done the deed by a dry-plate, quick-shutter process in a way that surely lays him liable for criminal libel in society's assize. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... created in which witchcraft became at once the most dangerous and detested of crimes. While the government was busy putting down the conjurers, the aroused popular sentiment was compelling the justices of the peace and then the assize judges to hang ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... or who otherwise betrayed a leaning towards the new opinions. In 1532, we are told, "there was ane greit objuratioun of the favouraris of Mertene Lutar in the Abbay of Halyrudhous;"[33] and of course their goods were forfeited to the crown. In 1534 a second great assize against heretics was held in the same place. The king, as the great Justiciar of the realm, was present in his scarlet robe, and took a prominent part in the proceedings. Betoun was also present and taking part. About sixteen ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... browse upon; it is not amusing, and we are none the wiser for it, but that cannot be helped. So far so good. We mean to make an advocate of ourselves with a prospect of one day being made President of a Court of Assize, when we shall send poor devils, our betters, to the galleys with a T.F.[*] on their shoulders, so that the rich may be convinced that they can sleep in peace. There is no fun in that; and you are a long while coming to it; for, to begin with, there are two years ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... assize-time, the lawyers and barristers had arrived, and the town was unusually gay; when, one morning, the attorney, whom we have mentioned as Sir Wilfrid's man of business, and a most respectable man, called upon his gallant client at his lodgings, and said he had a communication of importance ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... an unworthy action. I have consented to make this proposition known to you, in branding it as an honest man ought to brand it. Now it is your affair. If you are guilty, choose between the court of assize or the terms proposed. My part is altogether professional. I will have nothing more to do with so dirty a business. The third party's name is M. Petit Jean, oil merchant; he lives on the banks of the Seine, No. 10, Quai ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... regime, an extraordinary assize held by judges specially appointed by the King and acting in ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... Assize are, by the very nature of the case, instruments of injustice, it is the Grand Juries which are the great scene of Jobbery. They have the power of levying a county rate for roads, bridges, and other public accommodations. Milesian gentlemen, attendant on the Grand ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... souvenir is kindly received and appreciated. Wear the watch; and let it continually remind you not only of the sincerity of my friendship, but of the far more important fact that every idle or injudiciously employed hour will cry out in accusation against us in the final assize, when we are called upon to render an account of the distribution of that invaluable time which God allows us solely for the accomplishment of His work on earth. It is so exceedingly difficult for young persons to realize how marvellously rapid ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... graver, and his eye fixed as on a thought far away, as the boy's grief brought to his mind the Great Assize, when all that is spoken in the ear shall indeed be proclaimed on ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge



Words linked to "Assize" :   law, judicial writ, court of assize and nisi prius, jurisprudence, regulation, court of assize, writ



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