At Leicester the trial by compurgation, the rough predecessor of trial by jury, had been abolished by the Earls in favour of trial by battle.

The aim of the burgesses was to regain their old justice, and in this a touching incident at last made them successful.

"It chanced that two kinsmen, Nicholas the son of Acon and Geoffrey the son of Nicholas, waged a duel about a certain piece of land concerning which a dispute had arisen between them; and they fought from the first to the ninth hour, each conquering by turns.

Then one of them fleeing from the other till he came to a certain little pit, as he stood on the brink of the pit and was about to fall therein, his kinsman said to him 'Take care of the pit, turn back, lest thou shouldest fall into it.' Thereat so much clamour and noise was made by the bystanders and those who were sitting around that the Earl heard these clamours as far off as the castle, and he enquired of some how it was there was such a clamour, and answer was made to him that two kinsmen were fighting about a certain piece of ground, and that one had fled till he reached a certain little pit, and that as he stood over the pit and was about to fall into it the other warned him.

Then the townsmen being moved with pity, made a covenant with the Earl that they should give him threepence yearly for each house in the High Street that had a gable, on condition that he should grant to them that the twenty-four jurors who were in Leicester from ancient times should from that time forward discuss and decide all pleas they might have among themselves." [Sidenote: Division of Labour] At the time we have reached this struggle for emancipation was nearly over.