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“Ad questionem juris non respondent Juratores.” (To the question of law the jurors do not answer.) “The Annotist says, that this is indeed a maxim in the Civil-Law Jurisprudence, but it does not bind an English jury, for by the common law of the land the jury are judges as well of the matter of law, as of the fact, with this difference only, that the (a Saxon word) or judge on the bench is to give them no assistance in determining the matter of fact, but if they have any doubt among themselves relating to matter of law, they may then request him to explain it to them, which when he hath done, and they are thus become well informed, they, and they only, become competent judges of the matter of law. And this is the province of the judge on the bench, namely, to show, or teach the law, but not to take upon him the trial of the delinquent, either in matter of fact or in matter of law.” (Here various Saxon laws are quoted.) “In neither of these fundamental [71] laws is there the least word, hint, or idea, that the earl or alderman (that is to say, the Prepositus (presiding officer) of the court, which is tantamount to the judge on the bench) is to take upon him to judge the delinquent in any sense whatever, the sole purport of his office is to teach the secular or worldly law.”
—Ditto, p. 57, note.
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Judges are there to teach the people about the law: not dictate to them.
And reinforcing the allodial nature of land ownership:
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Also, “The same regulations, concerning the distribution of justice by the intervention of juries, . . were introduced into the baron courts of the king, as into those of the nobility, or such of his subjects as retained their allodial property.”
—Same, p. 337.
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Both quotes above from SECTION I.: Weakness of the Regal Authority. Essay on the Trial by Jury