Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/192

 184 BARONY AND THANAGE April in Northumberland and Durham ^ but not in Cumberland and Westmorland, is more obscure. Its resemblance to the ' fine of the county ' or ' wapentake fine ' of Yorkshire ^ and to the ' sacfee ' of Lancashire ' (once part of the earldom of York), which were likewise paid as a forinsec ' rent ' or * farm ', is too striking to be quite accidental, and not least in that it was like them paid only by the suitors of the county, wapentake, and barony courts, men who, having tenants of their own, themselves had at least a hallmoot court. Two explanations of the ' custom ', were given at the close of the thirteenth century. The first comes from Northumberland, where ' fine of court ' was defined in 1278 as a sum of £50 paid by the suitors of the county and barony courts twice in every seven years that the king's bailiff should not come and sit in a baron's court and hear the pleas and as soon as the suitors did anything against the law and custom of the realm, amerce them.* As the king's bailiff, the coroner, was certainly bound to be present when the pleas of the Crown were dealt with in county or barony court in Northumberland ^ as elsewhere,* this explanation may be set aside at once. The second comes from Yorkshire, where ' fine of the county ' or ' wapentake fine ' was defined in 1279 as a fine paid in lieu of suit to the county or the wapentake.' Now, in the sense that the fine was paid by the suitors of the county and wapentake courts in lieu of suits due from themselves, this explanation cannot be accepted ; for it was paid not only by men bound to attend the local courts just once a year, but also by men whose suit was done for them by their lord or his attorney,® and by men who themselves did » Maitland, vbi supra, p. 630 ; Sartees, Hist. Durham, iv. 73. ' Mamecestre, i. 134 ; cf. Compoti of H. de Lacy (Chetham Soc.), p. 49. ' In 1259 the county of Northumberland recorded that Simon de Montfort as guardian of Gilbert de Umfraville and his lands should hold all pleas in Redesdale as well of the Crown as others and have the issues of the pleas, and that a knight of the county should be assigned by the justices to see that ' iusticia unicuique teneatur ' (Northumberland Assize Rolls, p. 44). In Annandale, which David I granted to Robert de Brus to hold as Ranulf Meschin held Carlisle (Bain, i, no. 29), the king might choose as coroner one of the lord's homagers in Aimandalc and issue writs to him direct, who should answer to the king and his justices of Lothian at Dumfries {ibid. ii, no. 1588). • Fleta (1685), i. 18, de Coronatoribus ; cf. Britton (1640). p. 4. How little this jury's definition of fine of court is to be trusted appears from its demonstrably false definition of comage as a sum of £50 paid to the king by the suitors of the county and barony courts to be quit of the custom that if a man were impleaded and did not defend the plaint word by word, he should be at once convicted. ' By Baldwin de Wake, lord of Cottingham {Plac. de Quo Warr. p. 199). • Baldwin de Wake held the manor of Ayton of Nicholas Mennell, paying him 3s. per annum of ' fine of coimty ', Mennell holding of Peter de Mauley by the same fine of county, and Peter of the king in chief, and he did suit by his steward to the comity of York for himself and all his tenants {ibid.).
 * Plac. de Quo Warr. pp. 186 ff.
 * Maitland, vhi supra, p. 630.