As exemplified in the Manor of Castle Combe. 149 
Waif and Estray, of Villains absenting themselves, or marrying 
their daughters without the Lord’s consent, of trespass on the Lord’s 
soil or waters, or the deer in his park, or the hares, conies, or 
pheasants in his warren, of trespass on their own lands or tenements, 
the stint of sheep or cattle which each tenant might place on the 
common lands, questions of bounds, of the necessary repair of 
tenements, and generally speaking all matters relating to their own 
estates and that of the Lord; as to which matters they also 
enacted and enforced bye-laws, with the assent of the Lord, given 
through his Seneschal, and appointed proper officers to see them 
carried out. 
The Homage also tried causes of debt and damage to the amount 
of 40s. between the inhabitants of the Manor, or pleas brought 
against them by strangers, with the ancient common-law proceedings 
of ‘“distringas, or common plaint.” And great pains were taken 
by repeated orders, followed up by the levy of penalties, where 
these were contravened, that none of the residents of the Manor 
should sue one another, or be sued themselves, in any other Court, 
nor any officer of another Court execute a writ within the Manor; 
unless in cases of felony, and such as were beyond the Jurisdiction 
of its proper Court. 
The Homage occasionally appointed special meetings of them- 
selves, or sometimes of all the tenants, at the Market-cross, or 
elsewhere, for the purpose of proceeding thence to view and 
determine questions relating to boundaries, or damage to property, 
or encroachments on the common, or waste of the Manor, or the 
state of repair of some Copyhold tenement, or of the fences of the 
woods, common arable fields, or commons of pasture, which the 
several occupiers were bound to maintain. Or they looked to the 
necessary repairs of the Church-house, the Market-cross, the Town- 
bridge, the Town-well, the pynfold, or Pound, the Stocks, the Butts, 
and other public properties; and ordered their due repair, under 
penalty for default, by the parties respectively liable thereto by 
ancient custom. 
The Homage presented at every Court the ancient Customs of 
the Manor, by which the Copyhold tenants were bound, as to 
