Medieval establishment of Common Law in England

The emergence of Common Law in England is one of the most important features of its history. If such a Common Law had not developed we would still be ruled in the feudal manner which was adopted during the piecemeal settlement of the Normans, following William the Conqueror’s victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The mid-late Medieval period saw the beginning of such legal developments for the country, and as such is one of the most interesting periods in England’s history. It is also quite a subtle period to examine, as although we can pick out important people and events, there are no discernible turning points.
The two main and gradual changes that we can follow are the evolution of Laws from oral to written, and from feudal to central. So where precedents in court had previously been based on spoken word, people began recording cases and Laws instead, and where Law had been the domain of the feudal Lords, who ruled over certain areas of land and maintained Law only over their vassals and possesions (for example horse liability), it became the priority of the central government of England.
The most important man in the development of these processes was King Henry II, who ruled England from 1154 to 1189. He increased the number of his own men who visited each county to assist the local sheriffs in their legal duties, he vastly improved the written records of legal activity, and his rule saw for the first time the instigation of a jury of ’12 lawful men’.
What Henry II did was not revolutionary, as Henry I before him had sent out a writ in 1108, which officially established royal jurisdiction over all legal matters in England. But what Henry II did was to put many of Henry I’s writs and ideas into practice, and he did this so efficiently and with such great aplomb that the monarchs who ruled after him found that their path to a Common Law was well paved.