Chapter XVII. declares that common pleas must henceforward be heard in

a fixed place. This had already been to some extent the practice when this class of cases was heard; it was now made the rule. From this time suitors in this court were not put to the expense and inconvenience of following the king from place to place.

Chapters XVIII. and XIX. deal with the three petty assizes, three kinds of cases regarding disputes about the possession of land. These must be heard in the county courts before two visiting justices and four knights of the shire. The hardship of attendance at the county courts was to some extent obviated.

Chapters XX. to XXII. regulate the amount of fines imposed for offences against the law. Property necessary for one's livelihood must not be taken. The fines must only be imposed by the oath of honest men of the neighbourhood. In the same way earls and barons must only be fined by their peers, and a similar privilege is extended to the clergy, who, moreover, were not to be fined in accordance with the value of their benefices, but only of their other property. It should be noticed that trial by one's peers, as understood in Magna Carta, is not confined to the nobility; in every class of society an accused man is punished in accordance with the verdict of his peers, or equals.