Читать книгу A Concise History of the Common Law - Theodore F. T. Plucknett - Страница 92

The Manor

Frankpledge

A Manorial Court at Work

Counties, Palatinates, Honours

Besides all this there is the second aspect of the courts we have just described, namely, the effect upon them of the local territorial magnate. Here we come to an extremely obscure and difficult subject. The sources of the authority of a great lord or baron can usually be traced with some confidence, but the rise of numerous petty lordships all over the country and their effect upon the existing communal organisation are matters of greater complexity.¹ It is even difficult to classify the different sorts of power which a local lord could exercise at various times. In some cases the lord’s jurisdiction was personal; in others it was territorial; and in many cases it is impossible to draw the line. On the one hand we have the development of the manor, and, closely connected with it, of the view of frankpledge; on the other it is clear that in many cases the whole organisation of the hundred court fell into private hands, and it is even fairly common to find that besides owning the hundred court the lord will even exclude the sheriff entirely, and instead of the sheriff’s turn the lord’s steward will hold a “court leet”.