3S4 History of the English Landed Interest. 



from his lord or a stranger, in an action of ejectment broiiglit 

 at common law.^ 



As the lord possessed rights to mines and timber, the suitors 

 of Court Baron had often to adjudicate on questions of waste, 

 such as arose when a copyholder opened mines, cut down 

 timber, or committed permissive waste in neglecting to repair.^ 



So far the business of the Estate Court has referred to the 

 subject matter of tenures by copy of Court Roll. But this in 

 no way exhausts the list of duties to which the suitor of a 

 Court Baron lent his ear. The work of the assembly had in 

 fact grown so complex as to have for some time necessitated a 

 subdivision of its business under different headings. Thus 

 much was heard by those special meetings of the Court Baron 

 in which only copyholders were suitors, and to which the dis- 

 tinctive appellation of Customary Court was affixed.^ As has 

 been already pointed out, the steward was judge in this and 

 all other forms of the Court Baron when all the suitors held 

 base tenures. But it must be remembered that the great 

 dignitary who appended his name to what was generally 

 termed the Court Baron, was the feudal chief of many tenants 

 in subinfeudation ; so that affairs relating to freehold estates in 

 land came to be discussed in a separate branch of this assembly, 

 which was held under the same jurisdiction, and at the 

 same place and time as the Court Leet. At this meeting the 

 suitors were composed of freeholders. Here, too, the statute 

 of 12 Car. IT. had, metaphorically speaking, beaten the sword 

 into a ploughshare. All the stately incidents of military feud- 

 alism, saving those already excepted, had vanished. Homage, 

 fealty and knight service were but memories of a past polity 

 wherein the peaceful arts of agriculture had been strangely 

 confused with the stii'ring episodes of war. In the Estate Court 

 of the freeholders thus distinguished from the Customary Court 

 of the freeholders, and from that, too, of ancient demesnes, the 

 various kinds of freehold property, together with their rights 

 or wrongs, engaged the attention of the baronial suitors. Their 



* Williams, Ileal Property, Pt. iii., of Copj-holds. 



^ Kitchen, Court Leet. 



^ Jacobs, Law Diet., Court Baron. 



