192 BARONY AND THANAGE April county court, was ' terrene ' for their tenants who owed theirs to the courts held at the capita of the several baronies. Neither might the sheriff nor his Serjeants enter a barony even to serve a writ or to make an arrest, save for pleas of the Crown, unless the baron first failed to do so at his behest.^ With these justiciary rights went administrative ones. In the baronies, the comage, Serjeants' food, and customs of oats and hens were all paid to the baron, who paid over the comage, amounting in each case to just the sum that he himself owed, to the exchequer at Newcastle or Carlisle as the case might be,^ but kept the other customs for the use of himself and his own Serjeants,^ whereas in the rest of the county all were paid to the sheriff, who kept the Serjeants' food for his Serjeants but accounted for the other customs separately to the exchequer at Westminster,* Clearly, the baron's relation to his tenants in respect of these customs was simply that of an ofl&cial collecting the king's dues and remitting to the king through the sheriff such as had not been assigned to him for official purposes. Again, although ' endmot ' and common array were ' forinsec ' services, the sheriff could not summon the men of a barony to go with him against the king's enemies except through the baron and his bailiff ; ^ yet at the bidding of the lord and his lieutenant every man living within the barony must follow them to the border, no matter whose tenant he might be.* Here too the baron's relation to the men of his barony was that of an official calling on the king's lieges within his bailiwick to follow him on the king's service just as the king's thane used to call out the men of his bocland. In these matters, as in all others that concerned the keeping of the peace and the execution of justice, the duties that in the rest of the shire fell to the sheriff, in the barony fell to the 'foreign bailiff ', who collected the castle ward and comage money of the barony, warned the tenants and inhabitants to attend upon the lord or his deputy, took up waifs and strays, served all
- In 1526 Sir William Lisle, the descendant of Otwel de Insula, so violently resented
the action of the sheriff of Northumberland in entering his manor of Felton, part of his barony of Woodbum, to take a distress, which he swore neither king nor sheriff should do, that he was outlawed and at last executed (Letters and, Papers, iv, nos. 240-2). See Welford's History of Newcastle, iL 98 ff., for the whole story. Sir William's claim was never traversed.
- e. g. the comage of the free tenants of Liddel amounted to 56«. ' for which the
lord shall answer to the sheriff of Cumberland for the king's use ' (Bain, ii, no. 208), this being just the amount of comage due from the lord himself (Testa de Nevill, ii. 697). Similarly, the comage due from the Middletons and Rodom was paid to the lord of Beanly, who paid it to the exchequer at Newcastle (Bain, iii, no. 77 ; Red Book, p. 713).
- e.g. at Appleby (Nicolson and Bum, i. 292 ff.).
- Pipe Rolls of Cumberland and Westmorland, p. iv.
' ' The Office of Warden of the Marches ', ante, xxxii. 487. ' Humberston's Survey.
