George James Turner, 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 6… (1911)
“ Two most interesting provisions, to which the clergy offered no opposition, were: (1) if a dispute arose between a clerk and a layman concerning a tenement which the clerk claimed as free-alms (frankalmoign) and the layman as a lay-fee, it should be determined by the recognition of twelve lawful men before the king’s justice whether it belonged to free-alms or lay-fee, and if it were found to belong to free-alms then the plea was to be held in the ecclesiastical court, but if to lay-fee, in the court of the king or of one of his magnates ”
