NORTHAMPTON, ASSIZE OF, a short code of English laws issued in 1176, drawn up in the form of instructions to six committees of three judges each, who were to visit the six cir cuits into which England was divided for the purpose. Though purporting to be a reissue of the Assize of Clarendon (i 166), it contains in fact many new provisions. As compared with the earlier assize it prescribes greater severity of punishment for criminal offences; arson and forgery were henceforth to be crimes about which the jurors were to enquire, and those who failed at the ordeal were to lose a hand as well as a foot. In what is per haps the most important section we may probably see the origin of the possessory action of mort d'ancestor, an innovation scarce ly less striking than the institution of the novel disseisin in the winter of '166. The justices were also ordered to try proprietary actions commenced by the king's writ for the recovery of land held by the service of half a knight's fee or less. In their fiscal capacity they were to enquire into escheats, churches, lands, and women in the king's gift. The royal bailiffs were to answer at the
exchequer for rents of assize and all the perquisites which they made in their offices, and apparently the duty of enforcing this provision was entrusted to the justices. As a result of the rebel lion of 1173-74 it was provided that an oath of fealty should be taken by all, "to wit, barons, knights, freeholders, and even.
villeins (rustici)," and that any one who refused should be ar rested as the king's enemy, and the justices were to see that the castles, the demolition of which had been ordered, were razed. See Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law (1898) ; Stubbs, Constitutional History of England (1895). The text occurs in Cronica Rogeri de Howden (Rolls Series), ii. 89, and Gesta Henrici Regis Se cundi (Rolls Series), i. Ia. It has been reprinted from the latter by Stubbs in Select Charters (1913). (G. J. T.)