Before I leave this King Henry II I must add this also: that he, in the three and twentieth year of his reign [1176–7], did (by the advice of his son and bishops) cut the Realm into six parts, and to every of these parts appointed three justices, which by Henry Bracton are called itinerantes, and in Britton's book justices in eyre, quasi err antes (as Gervasius of Tilbury expoundeth it), in respect (as it seemeth) of those oth erwhich were first called residentes and afterwards de banco, for the reason of their certain sitting without remove. The proper names of which justices are set down by Roger Hoveden, who also describeth their circuits, not to differ much from the same that our Justices of Assize do now ride. And these justices held pleas as well of criminal as of civil suits, and so continued till the beginning of the reign of King Edward III, by which time their authority was by little and little weakened, partly by a former advancing of certain new justices, called of assize (because their first office was to take assizes in every country), whereunto it was afterwards added that they with others should take attaints, juries, and certificates, and deliver the gaols also, and partly by the erecting of wardens of the Peace (afterwards called justices of the peace), to whom likewise jurisdiction of sundry sorts was given and committed; so that about the beginning of the reign of King Edward III the sessions in eyre did altogether cease and take leave.