Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/201

 1920 BARONY AND THAN AGE 193 processes in the liberty, and performed generally the office of a bailiff of a hundred.^ In the palatine earldoms of Durham, Lancashire, Cheshire, and Yorkshire it was the same. In all of them were barons who, although they were never summoned to parliament, had all the rights of other barons. Thus in Durham, the lords of Brancepath, Barnard Castle, Gainford, and Cunisclive had gallows and infangthef in their baronies ; ^ and we cannot doubt that the other barons, including the baron of Hilton, had the same rights. In Lancashire, the barons who held of Roger of Poitou, the ' barones comitatus ', held free courts {liberae curiae) for all pleas but those of the earl's sword, ^ Their successors too had infangthef, toll and team by the king's grant,* Serjeants' food, bode and witness,^ and their ' Grith-serjeants ' kept the peace, served writs and summonses, and made distresses and attach- ments, collected the rents of the ' forinsec ' tenants, and did all other things pertaining to a liberty ; ^ and all these things belonged to them by reason of their baronies.' In Cheshire, Earl Ralph, going on crusade c. 1218, gave a charter to his barons confirming their liberties ; notably, that each of them should have his court free of all pleas and suits moved in the earl's court except the pleas belonging to his sword, and that for these they might defend all their manors in county and hundred by a sene- schal.® In Yorkshire, Conan, earl of Richmond, c. 1156-66, confirmed to Torfin, son of Robert, a fief of two knights (Man- field) ' cum soco et saco, et tol et tem, et infangthef et cum omnibus libertatibus et liberis consuetudinibus sicut aliquis alius ex meis baronibus feudum suum melius et honoratius de me tenet '.^ The same rights were claimed by the lords of ' e. g. at Alnwick, AUerdale, and Coupland {ibid.). the earl whose tenants they were, but to the king, is interesting and important ; for it suggests that the baron was always a royal official and that the earl could claim his service only by royal grant. This is borne out by Richard I's charter granting the wapentake of Sedbergh to Bishop Puiset of Durham, for in it the services of such tenants as held of the king in chief by barony {Red Book, p. 438 ; Testa de Nevill, ii. 783-4) were expressly granted to the bishop (Surtees, Hist, of Durham, i. cxxvi). the lord's messages ; ' witness ' or ' witnessman ', the service of going with the lord's Serjeants to deliver summonses and to make attachments of men and goods, so as to be able to testify in court that all had been done in order. « Ibid. ii. 275. ' Robert Banaster, confirming a grant of lands to Cockersand Abbey, reserved to himself and his heirs infangthef and utfangthef over all the tenants, ' prout ad me pertinet ratione baroniae meae ' {Cockersand Cartulary (Chetham Soc), p. 643). Fitzjohn, temp. Stephen, as hereditary constable of Chester and chief counsellor over all the barons {ibid. i. 52). ' Facs. of Charters, Brit. Mus. i, no. 30, cited by Tait, Mediaeval Manchester, -g. 197. VOL. XXXV. — NO. OXXXVIII. O
 * Ibid. ; Plac. de Quo Warr. p. 604. * Mamecestre, i. 33.
 * This assertion that the barons of Lancashire owed their justiciary rights, not to
 * Mamecestre, ii. 275 ; cf. p. 286. ' Bode ' seems to have been the service of carrying
 * Ormerod, Hist, of Cheshire, i. 53 ; compare the charter of Earl Ralph to Eustace