When I use a word . . . Coroners’ duties: enquiry and prevention

CoronersThe office of coroner in England dates from the end of the 12th century,1 having been established by Richard I in the so-called Articles of Eyre of 1194, an eyre being a court of itinerant justices. Coroners were originally officers of the crown, custodes placitorum coronae, or guardians of the pleas of the crown. They protected the financial interests of the crown in criminal proceedings, acted as tax gatherers, detained witnesses and suspected felons and heard their confessions, and held inquests with juries, having carried out superficial post-mortem examinations. In later centuries all of these duties, except that of holding inquests, declined, with increasing centralisation of judicial proceedings and the establishment of other officers, such as Justices of the Peace.Today coroners hold inquests to determine the causes and manner of unnatural deaths, identifying who died and determining how they came to die, when, and where. Having conducted their investigations they…
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