Editing Assize of Clarendon (section)

==Effects of the assize==
These proceedings did much to transfer power out of the hands of local [[baron]]s and into the hands of the royal court and its judges. In 1215, moreover, the [[Fourth Lateran Council]] forbade clergymen from participating in a trial by ordeal. After this date, trials after an indictment by the grand jury were conducted by juries as well.

The large changes wrought in the English system of justice did not go unchallenged. The dispute of [[jurisdiction]] over the one-sixth of the population of England who were clergy was the chief grievance between the king and Becket. Disgruntled [[peerage|peers]] attempted to undo Henry's reforms by the [[Magna Carta]] forced on King [[John of England|John]], but by that time the reforms had progressed too far—and their superiority over the system they had replaced was too obvious—for the forces of reaction to gain much ground. Henry II's reforms laid the groundwork for the system of [[trial (law)|trial]]s in [[common law]].