assize, in law, a session, or sitting, of a court of justice. It originally signified the method of trial by jury. During the Middle Ages the term was applied to certain court sessions held in the counties of England; it was also applied in France to special sessions of the Parlement of Paris (the High Court) that met in the provinces. The term also designated certain writs operable in such courts. In modern times courts of assize are criminal courts that deal with the most serious crimes.
In England all writs of assize originally had to either be tried at Westminster in London or await trial in the locality of origin at the circuit of the justices every seven years. In order to remedy such delay and inconvenience, Magna Carta (1215) provided that certain writs of assize be tried annually by the judges in every county. By successive enactments the civil jurisdiction of the justices of assize was extended, and the number of their sittings increased until it was no longer necessary to appear at Westminster.
In France assizes were held regularly in the large towns and were run by the prévôts, low-ranking royal judicial administrators, in conjunction with a group of local assessors (lay judges). The grand assizes met four times a year under the auspices of the area baron or count or his bailli (bailiff), a high-ranking royal judicial officer in charge of the prévôts.
An important type of French assize was the grand jour, a meeting in a province of magistrates from the Parlement of Paris. The grands jours often were held at times of civil disruption in the area as a way of making the power and presence of the central government felt. For example, they were convened with some regularity during the Wars of Religion in the 16th century and after the Fronde rebellions in the 17th. In Champagne the grand jour was a more permanent fixture, though by the 16th century it met only irregularly. It dealt with cases of special interest and with appeals from the bailli’s courts.
In modern England assizes (abolished in 1971) were periodic sessions of the High Court of Justice held in the counties; they dealt with issues such as the trying of prisoners who committed crimes in jail and regular cases of treason and murder. In France (and in Germany until 1975) the assize courts are criminal courts of first instance handling the most severe crimes.
Examples of ancient writs of assize were those of mort d’ancestor and novel disseizin. The former was an action to recover lawfully inherited land taken by another before the heir was able to take possession; the latter was an action to recover lands of which the plaintiff had been dispossessed.