LEET. 



LEET. 



174 



The Holkham manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon customary law says : 

 " A tithing (there called ducimatio) contains, according to local usage, 

 ten, seventy, or eighty men, who are all bound (debent) to be pledges 

 (fidejussores) for each other. So that if any of them be accused 

 (calumpniam patitur), the rest must produce him in court ; and if he 

 deny the offence, he is to have lawful purgation by the tithing (that is, 

 by their swearing to their belief of his innocence). A tithing is in 

 some places called a ward, as forming one society, subject to observa- 

 tion or inspection within a town or hundred. In some places it is 

 called " borch ; " that is, pledges for the reasons above stated. In 

 others it is called tithing (in the original, decimatio), because it ought 

 to contain ten persona at the least." 



The assizes of Clarendon directed " that all the customs of frank- 

 pledge should be observed ; that a person receiving men into his house 

 or land, or within his jurisdiction (sokei, who were not in frank-pledge, 

 should be answerable for their appearance, and that no franchise or 

 liberty [LIBERTY] should exclude the sheriff from entering for the 

 purpose of seeing that views of frank-pledge were duly held." 



Leets are either public or private. The public leet is an assembly 

 held in each of the larger divisions of a county, called a hundred, at 

 which all freemen who are resiants within the hundred are bound to 

 attend in person or by their representatives. These representatives 

 were the reeves or chiefs of their respective tithings. whether desig- 

 nated by that or by any of the other appellations, each of whom was 

 accompanied by four good and lawful men of, and elected by, the 

 ' which deputed them. This public court-leet was held formerly 

 by the royal governor of the county, the ealdorman of the Saxons, the 

 earl of tlie Danes, the comes or count of the Normans. This great 

 functionary was accompanied by the shire-reeve, an officer elected by 

 the county to collect the king's rents aud the other branches of the 

 royal revenue, who in the absence of the ealdorman, presided in the 

 court, and governed the county as his deputy, whence he is called by 

 the Noruiaus a v ice-comes or vicount, though in English he retained 

 the name of shire-reeve or sheriff, the Designation connected with his 

 original and more humble duties. This public court, which was 

 originally called the folkmote, being held successively in each hundred 

 in the course of a circuit performed by the sheriif, acquired the name 

 of the eheritf's toura, by which name, though itself a court-leet, it is 

 now distinguished from inferior private leets. The latter courts appear 

 to have been ere ited at a very early period by grants from the crown 

 obtained by the owners of extensive domains (which afterwards be- 

 came manors) [MANOR], and most frequently by religious houses, for 

 the purpose of relieving their tenants and those who resided upon 

 their lands from the obligation of attending the tourn or leet of the 

 hundred, by providing a domestic tribunal, before which the resiants 

 .might take the oath of allegiance and the frank-pledges might bj 

 inspected, without the trouble of attending the tourn, and to which as 

 an apparently necessary consequence, the criminal jurisdiction of the 

 precinct or district was immediately transferred. In these private leets 

 the grantee, called the lord of the leet, performed the duties which, in 

 the public leet or tourn, after the ealdorman or earl had permanently 

 absented him elf, fell upon the sheriff. Their duties he might perform 

 either personally or 1 y his steward ; and as a compensation for this, 

 and his trouble in obtaining the franchise, it appears to have been the 

 practice for the great land owner who by his money and his influence 

 had procured the ^rant of a private leet to claim train resiants a cert lin 

 small annual payment by the name of certnm lefce. The tenants 

 within the precincts of a private leet, whether in boroughs, towns, tr 

 manors, formed a body politic wholly independent of the tourn or leet 

 of the hundred ; whilst such upland, or unprivileged, towns as had not 

 bean formed into or included within any private leet, still appeared, 

 each by its tithing man or reeve and four men of the tithing, aud 

 formed put of the body politic of the hundred. Each of tin 

 mnnities appears to have exercised most of those rights which it has 

 Utterly been supposed could not exist without incorporation. In 

 many cities and boroughs the ancient authority of the court-leet was 

 in lat^r tunes superseded by charter of iucorporation, in some of which 

 the important right of popular election of magistrates was ] reserved 

 entire ; whilst in the great majority of cases the ri^ht, though con- 

 tinued in name, was fettered, if not rendered altogether nugatory, by 

 restrictions of various characters and degrees, which are still to be seen 

 nughs not regulated by the Municipal Corporation Act. In other 

 respects the course prescribed by theue charters was adapted to the 

 * which had taken place in the habits of the people since the 

 institution of the court leet. . Many of the functions of the magistrates 

 in the r,ew incorporations were borrowed from the then comparatively 

 recent institution of justices of the peace. 



LL CuMititutiun of lite C'uurtleet. 



This court is a court of record, having jurisdiction of such crimes as 



iiibject the offenders to punishment at common law. The exclusive 



exercise of criminal jurisdi tion being inherent in the kingly oltiec, nil 



aal matters are denominated pleas of the crown, and the courts 



in which such pl<;as are held are the king's courts, although granted to 



a subject; tor ncb grant operates merely as an authoiity to the 



grantee to preside judicially by himself or his steward, and to take the 



it to his own vise. The authority so exercised under 



the king's grant is called a lordship, and the grantee is said to be the 



lord of the leet. It may be claimed either by a modern grant or by 

 prescription, that is, long established user, from which au ancient grant 

 is presumed. The grantee, whether claiming under a grant still extant 

 or by prescription, is commonly the lord of a manor, and the leet is 

 usually coextensive either with the actual limits of the manor, or with 

 its boundary at some former period. There may however be several 

 leets in one minor, and a leet may be appendant to a town, or to a 

 single house. It is not necessary that the lord of the leet should have 

 a manor, or indeed that he should have any interest in the land or 

 houses over which the leet jurisdiction extends. As the leet was 

 originally granted for the more convenient administration of justice, 

 the lord may be required by writ of mandamus to hold the court. 

 Upon non-viser of a lett, the grant is liable to be seised into the hands 

 of the crown, either absolutely as for a forfeiture, or qiwisquc, that is 

 until the defect be amended; the same consequence ensues upon neglect 

 to appoint an able steward aud other necessary officers, or to provide 

 instruments of punishment. 



Private leets are commonly held, as public leets must be. twice in 

 the year, within a month after Easter, and within a month after 

 Michaelmas, and even the former cannot, unless warranted by ancient 

 usage, be held at any other time except by adjournment. The court 

 appears to have been formerly held in the open air. It should be held 

 at its accustomed place, though, if sufficient notice be given, it may be 

 held anywhere within the precinct. All persons above the age of 

 twelve years and under sixty (except peers and clergymen, who are 

 exempted by statute, and women and aliens), resiant within the pre- 

 cinct for a year and a day, whether masters or servants, owe suit to 

 (that is, personal attendance at) this court, and here they ought to take 

 the oath of allegiance. The suit to the court-leet is said to be real 

 (that is. regal or due to the king), because every one bound to do suit 

 to such court as a resiant, is also bound to take the oath of allegiance 

 unless he has taken it before. But where a nou-resiant is bound by 

 tenure to join with the resiants in making presentments at the court- 

 leet, the duty is not suit-real, for he shall not be sworn to his alle- 

 giance, Sic., at this leet. It is merely suit-service, that is, a t>uit forming 

 one of the services due from the tenant to his lord in respect of the 

 tenure. A man who has a house and family in two leets, so as in law 

 to be conversant or commorant in both, must do his suit to the leet 

 where his person is commorant, namely, where his bed lies, but if he 

 occasionally reside in both, he is bound to do suit to each. 



III. Jurisdiction of the Court-lcct. 



The Anglo-Saxon Hundred Court appears to have had jurisdiction 

 in all causes, civil, criminal, and ecclesiastical ; and also to have had 

 the cognisance and oversight of all the communities of frank-pledges 

 within the hundred, the members of these communities being bound 

 for that purpose to attend at the Hundred Court by themselves or 

 their elected representatives. The jurisdiction of the Hundred Court 

 in ecclesiastical matters was taken away by an ordinance of William 

 the Conqueror, forbidding the attendance of the bishop. 



It was the province of the court-leet, as well the public leet of the 

 hundred, as the private leet, to repress all offences against the public 

 peace, and to enforce the removal of all nuisances ail'ecting the public 

 convenience. 



The leet jury possess a legislative authority in establishing by-laws. 

 By-laws made in a court-lcet and embodied in the presentments of the 

 jury in respect of matters properly cognisable in the leet, are binding 

 upon resiants, but not upon strangers. [BY-LAW.] A by-law imposing 

 a penalty of 5(. per month for taking or placing an inmate without 

 giving security to the overseers again.it. any charge upon the parish was 

 baid by Lord Hale to be usual and valid. The leet jury elect their 

 own chief magistrates, the reeve or constable, &c., -of the private leet, 

 and, as it would seem, the high constable (sometimes called the alder- 

 man) of the hundred. 



Before the Norman conquest, and probably for some time after, this 

 court of the leet was, if not the sole, at least the ordinary tribunal for 

 the administration of criminal justice in the kingdom. Until the 

 reign of Henry I., when, with respect to certain heinous offences, the 

 punishment of death was substituted for pecuniary compositions, no 

 crime appears to have been punished by death except that called in the 

 laws ot that prince " Openthifte," a theft where the offender was 

 taken with the mainour, that is, with the thing stolen upon him. 

 [ROBBERY.] Of this crime, as requiring no trial or presentment, the 

 leet had no cognisance. Other otienccs, .of however serious a nature, 

 subjected the party to a mulct, or pecuniary fine, the amount of which 

 was in many cases dett rminate and fixed. 



Offences to be merely inquired of in leets are arson, burglary, 

 escape, larceny, manslaughter, murder, rape, rescue, sacrilege, and 

 treason, and every offence which was felony at common law. These 

 offences being presented by the leet jury aa indictors, and the indict- 

 ment being certified to the justices of gaol delivery, the indictees may 

 be arraigned ; but they caunut be arraigned upon the mere production 

 of the court-roll containing the presentments. Formerly all otiences 

 inquirable in leets were also punishable there by amercement ; but the 

 power of adjudicating finally upon crimes in courts leet, whether 

 public or private, is now limited to such minor offences as are still 

 left under the old system of pecuniary compensation. No matters are 



