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Updated: May 14, 2025
During the existence of the house of Birmingham, the court-leet was held at the Moat, in what we should now think a large and shabby room, conducted under the eye of the low bailiff, at the expence of the lord. The jury, twice a year, were witnesses, that the famous dish of roast beef, ancient as the family who gave it, demanded the head of the table.
The high-bailiff also is entitled to all fines, forfeitures, waifs and strays in Westminster, which makes it a very profitable post. The high constable, chosen by the burgesses at their court-leet, and approved by the steward or his deputy, is an officer of some consideration in this city also, to whom all the rest of the constables are subject.
As long as the quit rent was duly paid, and he could produce the receipt, he was safe in the occupation of his cottage, and no one could turn him out. To be assessed by the court-leet in fact established his title.
I told him the truth, that he had been gone for four hours, and must by that time have reached his own home. My Father made no reply, but with a very stern look he left the room, as I afterwards understood from my Mother, to attend a court-leet at Updavon, where he had engaged to meet his friend and landlord Mr. Wyndham.
Most of them were farmers, and did not wish to interfere with a poor man, who they knew had no other way of getting a house of his own. By-and-by, when the cottage was built, the labourer was summoned to the court-leet of the manor, and was assessed in quit rent, a mere nominal sum, perhaps fourpence or a shilling a year. He had no objection to this, because it gave him a title.
In each ward was held a court-leet, or ward-mote, dating from the time of Alfred, though the actual institution of wards by that name is no later than the reign of Edward I. Civil causes, in London at least, were tried before a peculiar tribunal, the president of which was probably the portreve, or, in minor causes, an alderman.
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