181 



SERJEANT. 



SERJEANT. 



462 





formed from "sergent," but was always used with reference to a 

 particular species of service. 



The complete development of the feudal system which followed the 

 Norman conquest, was greatly facilitated by those political struggles 

 which terminated in placing large portions of the lands of the kingdom 

 in succession at the disposition of the crown. The forfeited lands of 

 the revolted English were granted by the Conqueror to his followers 

 with few exceptions, subject to the performance of personal services 

 regulated by the quantity of the land granted and the rank and 

 qualification of the grantee. The services ordinarily reserved upon 

 grants by the crown, and upon those made by inferior grantors to 

 their military followers, were of a military character. Where the 

 grant was to hold by the service of a knight's fee, or of two, or half a 

 knight's fee, &c., without expressing the nature of the service to be 

 performed, the party was said to hold by knight's service, per serricium 

 militare [KsiGHt's SERVICE] ; but where some particular service was 

 to be performed by the tenant, or by some duly qualified person pro- 

 vided by him, as, to be an earl or baron of the realm, to lead the 

 king's host, to assist in the defence of a certain castle, to wind a horn 

 upon an invasion, &c.- the tenure was called tenure by serjeanty (per 

 ttrjeantiam), and the grantee became a tenant by serjeanty, and would 

 be a Serjeant (teniaa). Whilst the two tenures were always dis- 

 tinguished by the two appellations of " serjeantia " and " servicium 

 militare," the term " semens" or " Serjeant" was applicable to a tenant 

 belonging to either class who had not taken upon himself the order of 

 knighthood. 



As the tenant by serjeanty was commonly distinguished by some 

 title derived from the nature of his service as earl, baron, constable, 

 marshal, treasurer, &c. the name " Serjeant " was usually applied, not 

 to those who held in serjeanty, but to those who held per v 

 mititare generally, and had not been knighted. Thus in 1348 the 

 four knight? impanneled on a grand assize were told by the judge that 

 they should elect no Serjeants whilst they could find suitable knights 

 (M. L"J Edw. III., to. 18); and in 1352 the four knights, not being 

 able to elect twelve other knights, were allowed, by the assent of 

 parties, to elect of the most wealthy Serjeants (H. 26 Edw. III., fo. 57, 



6". IS). (These two cases have been strangely misunderstood by 

 ugdale and others, as if they related to an exemption of serjeants-at- 

 law from the burthen of serving upon a grand assize.) So an 

 ordinance was made in parliament in the reign of Edward III. (1362), 

 by which the return of lawyers to parliament, as knighta for counties, 

 wag prohibited, on the ground that they acted with a view rather to 

 the benefit of their clients than to that of the public, and the elections 

 were directed to be made of knighta and of Serjeants of the most value. 

 The term Serjeant is also applied to those inferior military tenants, in 

 the grant of a subsidy in 1379, in which serjeanU and franklins of the 

 county are asseaaed at 6t. 8rf., or 3*. 4rf., according to their estate, 

 whilst Serjeants at law are assessed at a fixed sum of 40., being twice 

 the amount of the assessment of barons of the realm. (3 ' Rot. Parl.,' 58.) 

 The Serjeant holding per tervicium militare, if possessed of sufficient 

 land, was however bound, when called upon, to take upon himself the 

 obligations attendant upon the order of knighthood. The tenant, or 

 expectant tenant of such an estate, who wished to qualify himself fur 

 the creditable .discharge of knightly duties, usually entered upon a 

 course of training in the capacity of enquire to some knight, into 

 whose service he was induced to enter by considerations arising from 

 family connection, tenure, or friendship, or from the opinion enter- 

 tained of his military fame. Although from the time of the Conquest 

 down to the latter end of the reign of Edward III. all military tenants 

 who had not been knighted are designated " Serjeants," we find that 

 after the first years of the reign of Richard II. the term Serjeant, as 

 applied to the unknighted tenant by knight's service, disappears, and 

 is succeeded by the " esquire," a term previously used not to designate 

 a class of persona occupying a certain rank, but an office actually per- 

 formed. (' Abb. Rot. Origin.,' 209, b.) The services of the Serjeant of 

 the 14th century, and those of his successor, the esquire of the 15th, 

 were alike estimated as equal to one-half of the service of a knight- 

 bachelor, or one-fourth of the service of a knight-banneret. 



A special service of a military character, to be performed by the 

 tenant or his sufficient deputy, was not less noble than the ordinary 

 knight's service, and was sometimes called chivalerian serjeanty, but 

 more commonly grand serjeanty. It is said, indeed, by Littleton 

 (s. 153) to be a greater and more worthy service than the other. But 

 any service, military or civil, which was to be performed by the tenant 

 or his deputy to the king himself, was, on account of the dignity of the 

 king's person, accounted a grand or chivalerian serjeanty. Thus, in the 

 Germanic body, the offices of arch-chancellor, arch-treasurer, arch- 

 butler, Ac., of the empire, attached to particular electorates, were of 

 equal dignity with that of arch-marshal of the empire held by another 

 elector ; and in England, the civil office of lord high treasurer, &c., the 

 military office of lord high constable, lie., and the mixed office of lord 

 high steward, &c., and that of earl or baron by tenure, are, or were, all 

 equally held by grand serjeanty. 



Lands held by serjeanty, on account of the entire nature of the 

 service, could not lawfully be aliened or divided. This, however, was 

 by a species of connivance frequently done in fact. The course was 

 for the crown to issue a commission to fix a rent upon the alienated 

 serjeanty, or the divided portions. By thus process, tenancies in 



serjeanty gradually became uearly extinct before the abolition of 

 military tenures. Sometimes, upon the escheat or forfeiture of a 

 serjeanty, the lands were granted by the crown, to hold by knight 'a 

 service, whereby the special service of the serjeanty was lost. 



Where the services reserved upon the tenure bore some relation to 



war, but were required neither to be executed personally by the tenant 



or his deputy, nor to be performed to the person of the king, as the 



payment of rent in spurs, arrows, c., the tenant was said to hold by 



I petit or petty serjeauty, which was a socage tenure, having the same 



non-military incidents as a tenure upon which an annual rent in money, 



' corn, &c., was reserved, though considered to be of a somewhat more 



dignified character. 



The tenant ill serjeanty was bound either to perform the special 

 service himself, or to provide a person competent to discharge it. 

 Sometimes, the land having descended to or been acquired by a citizen 

 or a burgess, the service was considered of too great dignity to be per- 

 formed by the tenant upon whom the duty of the serjeanty had thus 

 devolved, in which case he was required to appoint a competent sub- 

 stitute. It happened more frequently, however, that the service to be 

 performed was below the Serjeant's rank, in which case it was permitted 

 and expected that the service should be performed by deputy. This 

 became so much a matter of course, that we find lauds held in serjeanty 

 commonly described as held by the service of procuring (per servicium 

 inveniendi) persons to do the duty. This frequently happened with 

 regard to the inferior offices relating to the administration of the law, 

 as in the ordinary case of a tenure by the service of finding bailiffs 

 itinerant. With respect to this particular appointment and some few 

 others, the name itself was transferred from the appointer to the 

 appointee, and the designation of Serjeant was given to the person by 

 whom the service of the serjeanty was actually performed. Hence our 

 serjeants-at-mace, and other similar officers in Normandy and in 

 England. In like manner, the sheriff being the ballivus of the county, 

 that is, the person into whose custody or bailiwick the county is 

 bailed or delivered, the inferior officers whom he employs have 

 acquired the name of bailiffs. However humble the nature of the 

 service may have been, the tenant was bound to perform it in person, 

 in case no substitute could be obtained. 



Among the civil services the performance of which was provided for 

 by the creation of serjeanties, one of the most important was tho 

 administration of justice. Both in Normandy and in England nume- 

 rous grants of lands were made, to which grants the obligation to dis- 

 charge certain judicial or ministerial duties was annexed in lieu of tho 

 ordinary knight's service. In both countries it would appear that all 

 counties, as well as the more important cities and boroughs, were 

 placed under an officer of the crown who held lands by the tenure of 

 administering justice in criminal matters. This local judge was in 

 England called the lung's serjennt (serviens regis), or the Serjeant of 

 the county, city, or borough ; sometimes (skit. Westm. I., c. 30) 

 Serjeant in fee ; sometimes capitaUs serviens of the county (' Rot. Parl .,' 

 236) or of the hundred (' Testa de Nevil,' 409 d). 



Lands held by this tenure are commonly described in ancient records 

 as lands held per serjeantiam tenendi (sometimes cuutodiendi) placit.i. 

 corona?. It appears from Bracton, fol. 157,' that this officer (the king's 

 MTJeant) had a concurrent jurisdiction with the sheriff, and that their 

 records were equally incapable of being controverted. These Serjeants 

 had officers under them, who, taking the denomination of Serjeant 

 from the hereditary officer whose authority was in part delegated to 

 them, were in counties known by the name of Serjeants of the sword, 

 sergens de 1'espee, servientes ad spatam, and in cities and boroughs 

 by the name of serjeants-at-mace, servientes ad clavam. In the course 

 of time, as charters were obtained, the citizens and burgesses acquired 

 the right of choosing their own magistrates ; and the king's officer, the 

 serjeant, was superseded by the municipal officers, the mayor and 

 aldermen. It is said that Norwich had no magistrate, except the 

 king's serjeant, until the 17th year of King Stephen. (Stow, 214; 

 Spelman, ' Gloss.') It sometimes happened that, after the incorpo- 

 ration of the city or town, the serjeant continued to be the judicial 

 officer de facto, sitting as assessor to the municipal magistrates. This 

 was the case at Oxford. (' Harleian MSS.,' 298, fol. 56.) In London 

 the office appears to have been retained, but a charter of 12 Edw. II. 

 gave to the citizens tho privilege of electing their comnvm serjeant. 



In counties, tho king's serjeant, as a judicial officer, may be traced 

 to a much later period ; and although the office is now become obso- 

 lete, and its principal functions have for centuries devolved upon the 

 justices of the peace, proclamation is still made upon the execution of 

 every commission of jail delivery, inviting all persons to inform this 

 officer of any treason, felonies, or misdemeanors committed by the 

 prisoner at the bar. 



Where the criminal jurisdiction of a particular district was annexed 

 to a grant of land to a subject, the jurisdiction, though imposed as a 

 condition and a burden, was called a franchise [FRANCHISE], inasmuch 

 as it excluded the ordinary power of the officers of the crown. The 

 grantee was said to hold in frank serjeanty, en franche sergenterie ; 

 and in respect of the lands attached to the office, thia serjeanty was in 

 Normandy sometimes called uiie sergenterie glebde. For the actual 

 administration of justice, the tenant usually delegated his judicial 

 authority as serjeant to an officer of his own, who was therefore called 

 hit serjeant, or the serjeant of the district (Mad. ' Exch./ 103 ; ' Testa 



