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"A bailiff of a Leet, Court-baron, Manor, Balivus Letae, Baronis, Manerii. He is one that is appointed by the lord, or his steward, within every manor, to do such offices as appertain thereunto, as to summon the court, warn the tenants and resiants; also, to summon the Leet and Homage, levy fines, and make distresses, &c;., of which you may read at large in Kitchen's Court-leet and Court-baron."
Coke thinks "that under this word balivus, in this act, is comprehended every justice, minister of the king, steward of the king, steward and bailiff." But whether this were really a common law principle, or whether the provision grew out of that jealousy of the government which, at the time of Magna Carta, had reached its height, cannot perhaps now be determined.
The judge of a court. A municipal magistrate, &c;. Burrill's Law Dict. Spelman, voc. Balivus; 1 Bl. Com.,344. See Bailli, Ballivus. The Latin ballivus occurs, indeed, in the laws of Edward the Confessor, but Spelman thinks it was introduced by a later hand. Com., 344. See Balliva. The office of bailiff was at first strictly, though not exclusively, a judicial one.
And thus this chapter of Magna Carta, which, according to his own definition of the word balivus, applies to all officers of the king; and which, according to the common and true definition of the term "pleas of the crown," applies to all criminal cases without distinction, and which, therefore, forbids any officer or minister of the king to preside in a jury trial in any criminal case whatsoever, he coolly and gratuitously interprets into a mere senseless provision for simply restricting the discretion of the king in giving names to his own officers who should preside at the trials of particular offences; as if the king, who made and unmade all his officers by a word, could not defeat the whole object of the prohibition, by appointing such individuals as he pleased, to try such causes as he pleased, and calling them by such names as he pleased, if he were but permitted to appoint and name such officers at all; and as if it were of the least importance what name an officer bore, whom the king might appoint to a particular duty.
The word is a French word, brought into England by the Normans. "I have heard great question made what the true exposition of this word balivus is. In the statute of Magna Carta, cap. 28, the letter of that statute is, nullus balivus de eaetero ponat aliqnem ad legem manifestam nec ad juramentum simplici loquela sua sine testibus fidelibus ad hoc inductis."
Political Dictionary. " BAILIFF, balivus. BAILIES, in Scotland, are magistrates of burghs, possessed of certain jurisdictions, having the same power within their territory as sheriffs in the county.
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