132 MEDIEVAL JUSTICE AND COURTS. 



for this singular innovation in the system of subinfeudation 

 was the injury done to mesne lords by the loss of the 

 feudal contingencies of escheat, wardship, marriage, and fines. 

 But even if this were the ostensible cause, it may have been, 

 and probably was, seen by the king and his counsellors, that 

 the statutes would, by creating a body of tenants in fee, who 

 held from the crown only, destroy the most serious inconve- 

 nience of feudal tenure, the imperium in imperio of the 

 mesne lords, and the temptation to insurrection which was 

 continually held out by the fact that a large number of tenants 

 were bound by fealty and military service to the principal 

 vassals of the crown. The offence of levying war upon the 

 king, made one of the articles in the statute of treasons, would 

 hardly have been so construed in the middle of the thirteenth 

 century, although, as is well known, the fact of comparative 

 independence, and the right of defiance, which are recognized 

 as necessary and legal in the customs of Beaumanoir, were 

 never so fully acknowledged in the modified feudalism of the 

 Norman and Angevine kings. 



The outer shape of these manor courts has lingered even to 

 our own time, and some of their ancient forms may be even 

 now preserved. It is not much more than thirty years since 

 the Corporation of Manchester purchased the manorial rights 

 from the lord of that city, so late is it, indeed, that manorial 

 offices were served by many men now living. I remember, 

 indeed, that the late Mr. Cobden told me of his having been 

 appointed to the office of aletaster in that ancient manor. 



The greater jurisdiction must have died out imperceptibly. 

 I am not aware that the charters granting the right of pit 

 and gallows have ever been formally revoked, though centuries 

 have passed since the right has been assumed. Even in the 

 time of Charles the Second, the execution of William Christian 

 by the Countess of Derby was treated as illegal, and the exer- 

 cise of a privilege which two hundred years before would 

 have been a common and undoubted right, was visited by a 

 heavy pecuniary mulct. 



