Court baron

A Court baron is an English or Scottish manorial court dating from the Middle Ages, the equivalent in England of the hallmote or hall moot of which H. R. Loyn observes "The hall moots of the twelfth century with their Saxon name might well be pre-Conquest institutions though there is no positive proof to that effect. The court was the lowest in the hierarchy of English courts in the middle ages, and the only one in which common villagers routinely appeared.

In the 17th century it was laid down by Sir Edward Coke in his Institutes of the Lawes of England that a manor had two courts, "the first by the common law, and is called a court baron," the freeholders (barons") being its suitors; the other a customary court for the copyholders. William Stubbs adopted this explanation, but Maitland held that court baron means curia baronis, "la court de seigneur," the seigneurial court, and that there was no evidence for there being more than one court. La court de baron is a 13th-century manual for the proper manner of holding a court baron The old view that at least two freeholders were required for its composition is also now discarded. Maitland's conclusion was that the "court baron" was not even differentiated from the "court leet" at the close of the 13th century, but that there was a distinction of jurisdictional rights, some courts having only feudal rights, while others, had regalities as well. When the court leet was differentiated, the court baron remained with feudal rights alone. These rights traced to a lord's jurisdiction over his men rather than to his possession of the manor, although in practice, from an early date, the court was associated with the manor.

Its chief business was to administer the "custom of the manor" and to admit fresh tenants who had acquired copyholds by inheritance or purchase, and had to pay, on so doing, a "fine" to the lord of the manor. The diverse business before the hall moots ranged from infractions of village bylaws to suits regarding land, so the records constituted registries of deeds. It was normally presided over by the steward of the lord of the manor, who is a lawyer, and its proceedings were recorded on the court rolls, of which older ones are now important for genealogical as well as for legal purposes.

Further reading

• Scriven, John, (Serjeant at law), A treatise on copyhold, customary freehold, and ancient demesne tenure: with the jurisdiction of Courts baron and Courts leet; also an appendix, containing rules for holding Customary courts, Courts baron and Courts leet, forms of court rolls, deputations, and copyhold assurances, and extracts from the relative acts of Parliament, 2 vols., 2nd. ed., London, 1823
• Andrew Barsby (1996) Manorial Law

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

See also

• court leet, a court baron that exercised the view of frankpledge and its attendant police jurisdiction
• Manor