Chap.VlH. OF MANCHESTER. *# the court of his own villain tref or town (hip 13 . Thus an uchelwyr is exprefsly declared to have had a right of determining caufcs that arofe within his own domain l And thus we find the courts of the commot and of the cantred to have been held in virtue of their office by the appointed governours of thofe ex- tended diftri£b 15 . Every baron in right of his fee was at once an hereditary judge in the fupreme court of juftice, the parlia- ment, and an hereditary jufticinry in his own jurifdi&ion ,6 « •Thus the claimant of an eftate was obliged to commence his aftion before the lord who had the immediate feigniory of the land ". And thus a perfbn that had received the inveftiture of a fee from the king was not, upon any fuit concerning the fee, to anfwer in the Uys or court of a frehyr-jawl or private lord* but before the judge of the principal court "• In thefe, as wefl
- as in the luperior court of parliament, that great that amir-
able principle of the feudal fyftem, the limited neceffity of a concurrence in the governed to render valid the a&s of the go- vernour, muft have been abfblutely reduced to pra&ice. In the inferior nftoc* of the trev the oeconomy of juftice muft have
- been conduced with the affiftance and concurrence of the fupe-
- rior villains. In thefe later ages of the feuds and in the fame
fort of baronial courts, the free foccagers muft have been the afleffors with the mefne lord, and the villain foccagers muft have fat with die king's bailiff. And every owner of a noble fee within the jurifdi&ion of a commot or a cantrev cou rt ap- pears actually to have inherited a feat and a fuffrage in it l Thefe were denominated the Seniors, and their decifton was denominated the Verdift, of the Country ; and they are retained hy reprefentation in the jury of the prelent times * Such was the eftablifhment of courts in the kingdoms of Britain, agreeing pretty exa&ly with the Norman judicatures ere&cd afterwards, the court of the tref anfwering to the moot of the mefne lord, the court of the commot to the leet of the fuperior barony, and the judicature of the cantref to the court of the hundred. Qily the fecond was riot among the Britons, as it was among the Normans, the private moot of a feigniory. It was abfolutcly, N n 2 lik
