or contempt,
depending on the rank and office of the person slandered and the
degree of guilt.

Henry began the use of writs to intervene in civil matters, such
as inquiry by oath and recognition of rights as to land, the
obligations of tenure, the legitimacy of heirs, and the
enforcement of local justice. The Crown used its superior coercive
power to enforce the legal decisions of other courts. These writs
allowed people to come to the Royal Court on certain issues. There
was a vigorous interventionism in the land law subsequent to
appeals to the king in landlord-tenant relations, brought by a
lord or by an undertenant. Assizes [those who sit together] of
local people who knew relevant facts were put together to assist
the court. Henry appointed some locally based justices, called
justiciars. Also, he sent justices out on eyres [journeys] to hold
assizes. This was done at special sessions of the county courts,
hundred courts, and manor courts. Records of the verdicts of the
Royal Court were sent with these itinerant justices for use as
precedent in these courts. Thus royal authority was brought into
the localities and served to check baronial power over the common
people. These itinerant justices also transacted the local
business of the Exchequer in each county. Henry created the office
of chief justiciar, which carried out judicial and administrative
functions.

The Royal Court retained cases of gaol delivery [arrested person
who had been held in gaol was delivered to the court] and
amercements. It also decided cases in which the powers of the
popular courts had been exhausted or had failed to do justice. The
Royal Court also decided land disputes between barons who were too
strong to submit to the county courts.

The King's Court of the Exchequer reviewed the accounts of
sheriffs, including receipts and expenditures on the Crown's
behalf as well as sums due to the Treasury, located still at
Winchester. These sums included rent from royal estates, the
Danegeld land tax, the fines from local courts, and aid from
baronial estates. Its records were the "Pipe Rolls", so named
because sheets of parchment were fastened at the top, each of
which dropped into a roll at the bottom and so assumed the shape
of a pipe.

The county and hundred courts assessed the personal property of
individuals and their taxes due to the King. The county court
decided land disputes between people who had different barons as
their respe