134 History of the English Landed Interest. 



vaders were ethnically familiar with the machinery of its 

 internal economy. Whatever portion of the territory had 

 been sufficient for the Saxon thane's inland was found to be 

 enough for the Norman's demesne. The system of communal 

 agriculture was the only one adapted to unenclosed ground ; 

 and the people, since perforce they required firewood, turf, and 

 pasturage from somewhere or other, would not have been 

 grudged their rights over the waste, so long as they did not 

 interfere with Norman predilections for venery. So the fresh 

 lord turned out the late owner, replaced the latter's home with 

 a castle, and elected his own seneschall, instead of the gerefa, 

 as president of the seignorial court, but interfered as little as 

 possible with popular rights, customs, and agriculture. 



But there had been franchises and liberties where the powers 

 of sac and soc had been vested in seignorial hands ; there had 

 been lords of the manor who had been presidents of the public 

 courts as well ; and there had been king's thanes who had 

 wielded the sword of justice quite as firmly as any sovereign. 

 Now, however, the Conqueror claimed a monopoly in the office 

 of public magistrate, and he was little likely to leave in 

 private hands so kingly a prerogative as the powers of life 

 and death. 



On the other hand, to entirely wrest jurisdiction from seig- 

 norial hands before the more modern rights of landownership 

 had been introduced and established, was doubly impossible 

 at a time when the population of each manor was composed 

 of defeated foes. From this dilemma the Norman statesmen 

 formulated a compromise. The business of the court leet was 

 still transacted side by side with that of the court baron. 

 Juries were selected from the leading freemen of the hundred, 

 the youth were registered in the tithing, the view of frank 

 pledge was held, liomage received, fines levied, sentence of 

 furca and fossa pronounced, and all estate business transacted 

 by the steward in the hall of the barony or manor. 



But no one was allowed to confuse the two tribunals. At 

 this youthful stage of the national growth, when the pages of 

 the statute book were almost blank, it would be difficult to 

 say how far the regulations for distinguishing the two jurisdic- 



