386 History of the English Landed Interest. 



There was a fourth branch of the Court Baron, resembling our 

 modern County Court, in which the freeholders claimed juris- 

 diction for trying actions of debt, trespasses, etc., under 405., 

 and which was held every three weeks. Unlike the jurisdic- 

 tion peculiar to the county tribunal, there were no powers in 

 this assembly to make execution on recovery of debt, but the 

 defendant's goods might be distrained and retained till satis- 

 faction was made.^ The effect of such a system as has been 

 now described in detail, was to advertise throughout the 

 honour or manor the legalities and illegalities peculiar to each 

 separate landed property. No one could extenuate an offence, 

 much less evade its legal consequences. The estate steward 

 was not so much the policeman of the district as the head of 

 its police. Every freeholder or copyholder had probably, some 

 time or other, been a suitor, and as such had shown his respect 

 for the law by dispensing its justice. A judgment pronounced 

 by him on other offenders warned him for ever afterwards 

 against offending in like manner. He who had been plaintiff 

 one month might be defendant the following month. He who 

 stood before the judgment of his neighbours one time might 

 be sitting in judgment on some of them another. He who 

 had helped to condone an offence then might be suffering 

 from a similar offence now. A severe view of a doubtful act 

 inspired to gratify private malice, or any undue display of 

 favour, might establish a precedent which would some day 

 cause injustice to him who had initiated this veiy form of 

 injustice. The lord was too much hedged in by the evidence 

 of his rolls and the publicity of his actions to be unjust, the 

 steward dared not be, and the suitors were disinclined to be. 



The business, then, relating to tenures and customs of the 

 manor was, it seems likely, well managed. Not so the offences 

 foreign to these matters. Poaching, we have already said, 

 was vigorously discountenanced, and scant justice meted out 

 whether offenders were haled before the tribunals of the Leet, 

 Baron, or Forest. The poacher was of another class altogether, 

 neither pohtically nor judicially represented, and there was 



* Jacobs, Lavo Diet., Court Baron. 



