BONI HOMINES

boni homines (boh-nIhom-<<schwa>>-neez). [Law Latin “good men”] Hist. Free tenants

who judged each other in their lord’s court.

“[W]e may find traces of juries in the laws of all those nations which adopted the feodal system, as in Germany, France, and Italy; who had all of them a tribunal composed of twelve good men and true, ‘boni homines’….” 3 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 349 (1768).[Blacks Law 8th]