Definition
To afforce the assize was a procedural mechanism in early English law used to break a deadlock among jurors who could not reach a unanimous verdict. Two methods existed: (1) confining the disagreeing jurors without food or drink until they reached agreement, or (2) adding new jurors to the panel up to a permitted limit, with the verdict requiring the concurrence of twelve. The practice belongs entirely to the historical record and has no application in modern law.
Common Confusion
The two methods of afforcing the assize are distinct in character and should not be conflated. Confinement without food or drink was a form of coercive pressure on an existing panel. The addition of new jurors was a structural remedy — expanding the pool until twelve agreed — and is conceptually closer to what modern procedure handles through jury selection rules or mistrial. Bouvier notes both, but the additive method is the more technically specific meaning of "afforce."
Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear only in historical sources dealing with medieval English common law procedure, particularly texts on assizes and early jury practice. Researchers encountering it in primary sources or treatise excerpts should understand it as evidence of how unanimity was enforced before the modern mistrial became the standard remedy for deadlock.
Two traps exist for the unwary researcher. First, the word "afforce" (also spelled "afforcer" in some sources) can appear in other legal contexts meaning simply to strengthen or reinforce — as in afforcing a court or a body with additional members. The specific phrase "afforce the assize" carries the technical jury-deadlock meaning; "afforce" alone may not. Second, the assize itself is a layered term: it referred at different periods to a session of court, a jury empaneled at such a session, a form of action (such as the assize of novel disseisin), and a body of rules or ordinances. When "afforce the assize" appears, it refers to the jury panel, not the court session or the form of action.
The practice is confirmed in Bracton (De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, 185b, 292a) and Fleta (Book 4, c. 9, § 2), two of the foundational treatises of medieval English common law. Researchers working in those texts will find this term in discussions of jury procedure and the mechanics of verdict-rendering. Because both Bracton and Fleta predate the consolidation of common law jury practice, the procedure described reflects a transitional period when the role of the jury was still being defined and coercive unanimity mechanisms were considered legitimate.
No modern counterpart exists. The procedure has been entirely displaced. Its interest today is historical and comparative — useful for understanding how the common law arrived at the unanimity requirement and what enforcement tools were available before the mistrial became standard doctrine.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's is the primary accessible authority and treats the entry concisely: afforcing the assize meant compelling unanimity, by starvation-confinement or by additive jurors, and the practice is discontinued. Bouvier correctly cites Bracton and Fleta as the foundational sources, which anchors the term firmly in thirteenth-century English legal practice.
What Bouvier does not develop is the theoretical tension between the two methods. Confinement without food and drink treated deadlock as a failure of will — jurors who refused to agree were being obstinate, and physical pressure was a corrective. The additive method treated deadlock as a failure of sufficiency — not enough concordant voices — and solved it by enlarging the pool. These represent different theories of what a jury verdict is and how it should be produced. Researchers interested in the jurisprudence of unanimity will find that distinction worth pursuing in Bracton and Fleta directly.
No other source in the available Law Mind corpus addresses this term. Historical dictionaries generally treat it as an obsolete technicality, which it is.
Jurisdictional Note
This is a term of English common law with no separate American development. It did not transplant into colonial or post-independence American practice in any traceable form. Research utility is limited to English legal history and comparative common law scholarship.