SOME ACCOUNT OF THE COURTS OF LAW HOLDEN IN 

 WEYMOUTH AND MELCOMBE REGIS, DORSET, IN 16-ra 

 AND 17TH CENTURIES. 



(BY T. B. GROVES, ESQ.) 



Although the records of the two ancient towns now known as the united 

 Borough of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis have suffered greatly from the 

 carelessness and ignorance of those responsible for their safe custody 

 there still remains sufficient to afford both amusement and instruction to 

 those who, if not altogether laudatores temporis acti, feel an interest attach- 

 ing to all that concerns the life and doings of our forefathers. 



The records of the higher Courts of Law and of Parliament furnish 

 the historian with materials for his grander works, but for truthful informa- 

 tion concerning the private lifje of the people recourse must be had to other 

 and humbler sources. Of these the records of the small courts of various kinds 

 held in more or less obscure places are not the least fruitful of facts which 

 might perhaps be characterised as trivial, but which, nevertheless, help to 

 fill up the outline picture presented by documents of greater importance and 

 solemnity. 



The clerk of the courts of which I write was indeed a " chronicler of small 

 beer," and, unlesawne were somewhat of an enthusiast, it would be painful as 

 well as laborious to have to wade through his puzzling manuscript in order 

 to pick up here and there a fact or two that seemed worth calling attention 

 to. It must also be entered as a justification in my case that the entries are 

 strictly local, a fact which gives them a significance and importance they 

 would not otherwise possess and which will, I fear, limit their interest to those 

 connected with the locality. 



Weymouth proper (the southern part of the present Parliamentary 

 borough) was not anciently incorporated, but was a Royal borough, 

 the private property of the Sovereign. The courts held in it were 

 manorial courts, and in that respect differed from those held in Melcombe 

 Regis. A book is extant containing the Records of the courts of certain Royal 

 manors in Dorset for the year 1582, and amongst them is Weymouth. The 

 entries are almost always in Latin, and generally contracted. The contractions 

 served the double purpose of economising space and of doing away with the 

 necessity of furnishing those troublesome things, correct terminations. One 

 would not perhaps be wide of the mark if a third reason were 

 added a desire to render them inaccessible to the vulgar, and there- 

 fore to render more important the office of Clerk of the Court. Not 

 that the clerk was at all particular to avoid the appearance of inefficiency, 

 hie mistakes were often amusing, and the way he eked out his scanty Latin 



