urisdiction, though public and generally dispersed through the kingdom,
is yet (with regard to each particular court) confined to very narrow
limits; and so ascending gradually to those of the most extensive and
transcendent power."--3 _Blackstone_, 30 to 32.

"The _court-baron_ is a court incident to every manor in the kingdom,
_to be holden by the steward within the said manor_. This court-baron is
of two natures; the one is a customary court, of which we formerly
spoke, appertaining entirely to the copy-holders, in which their estates
are transferred by surrender and admittance, and other matters
transacted relative to their tenures only. The other, of which we now
speak, is a court of common law, and it is a court of the barons, by
which name the freeholders were sometimes anciently called; _for that it
is held by the freeholders who owe suit and service to the manor, the
steward being rather the registrar than the judge_. These courts, though
in their nature distinct, are frequently confounded together. _The court
we are now considering, viz., the freeholders court, was composed of the
lord's tenants, who were the pares_ (equals) _of each other, and were
bound by their feudal tenure to assist their lord in the dispensation of
domestic justice_. This was formerly held every three weeks; and its
most important business is to determine, by writ of right, all
controversies relating to the right of lands within the manor. It may
also hold plea of any personal actions, of debt, trespass in the case,
or the like, where the debt or damages do not amount to forty shillings;
which is the same sum, or three marks, that bounded the jurisdiction of
the ancient Gothic courts in their lowest instance, or _fierding
courts_, so called because four were instituted within every superior
district or hundred."--3 _Blackstone_, 33, 34.

"A _hundred court_ is only a larger court-baron, being held for all the
inhabitants of a particular hundred, instead of a manor. _The free
suitors are here also the judges, and the steward the registrar, as in
the case of a court-baron._ It is likewise no court of record,
resembling the former at all points, except that in point of territory
it is of greater jurisdiction. This is said by Sir Edward Coke to have
been derived out of the county court for the ease of the people, that
they might have justice done to them at their own doors, without any
charge or loss of time; but its institution was probably