Manorial court

The manorial courts were the lowest courts of law in England during the feudal period. They had a civil jurisdiction limited both in subject matter and geography. They dealt with matters over which the lord of the manor had jurisdiction, primarily torts, local contracts and land tenure, and their powers only extended to those who lived within the lands of the manor: the demesne and such lands as the lord had enfeoffed to others, and to those who held land therein. Historians have divided manorial courts into those that were primarily seignorial – based on feudal responsibilities – and those based on separate delegation of authority from the monarch. There were three types of manorial court: the court of the honour; the court baron; and the court customary, also known as the halmote court.

Each manor had its own laws promulgated in a document called the custumal, and anyone in breach of those laws could be tried in a manorial court. The earlier Anglo-Saxon method of trial by ordeal or of compurgation was modified by the Normans into trial by a jury made up of 12 local freemen. The lord or his steward would be the chairman, whilst the parish clerk would write the record on the manorial rolls.

The three types of manorial court were distinguished by the importance of those who made use of them. The court of honour was for the manor's chief tenants, the court baron for other free tenants, and the court customary was for unfree tenants.

The honour court, also known as the curia ducis ("duke's court") or curia militum ("soldiers' court"), was made up of the most important of a lord's tenants, particularly those who owed him knight service. Unlike the other two types of manorial court its jurisdiction could extend over a number of manors. Dealing as it did with the most important of the lord's tenants it was initially the principal manorial court, and may have acted as a superior court of appeal for the lower manorial courts, at least until 1267.

The main business of the court baron was the resolution of disputes involving a lord's free tenants within a single manor, to enforce the feudal services owed to the lord of the manor by his tenants, and to admit new tenants who had acquired copyholds by inheritance or purchase, for which they were obliged to pay a fine to the lord of the manor. The English jurist Edward Coke described the court in his The Compleate Copyholder (1644) as "the chief prope and pillar of a manor which no sooner faileth than the manor falleth to the ground". The court baron was constituted by the lord of the manor or his steward and a representative group of tenants known as the manorial homage, whose job was to make presentations to the court and act as a jury.

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