VENUE

(Norm. Fr. visne; L.at. yic'metnm, neighbourhood.) In Law. By the original institution of trial by jury, jurors were summoned from the immediate neighbourhood where a fact happened, to try it by their 1289 VENUS. own knowledge. Hence, long after the institution had been altered in character, juries were still summoned in point of form from the parish, village, ., until by 4 Ann. c. 16. they became summonable as they still are, from the body of the county. The venue, therefore, was the neighbourhood named in the venue facias, or writ summoning the jury; and the last relics of the old practice, in criminal proceedings, were abolished byf)G.4. c.50. (See JvRY.) The venue, therefore, is the county in which the action is to be tried, which is specified in all material allegations in the pleadings; and it need not be the county in which the fact took place except in what are called local actions. See Pleading. [s. 1302]