Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/202

 194 BARONY AND THANAQE April Raskelf, Helmsley, Laughton, and Hunmanby * — ^to name but a few of the smaller Yorkshire baronies — as well as by the lords of Tickhill, Hallamshire, Knaresborough, and other great honors.^ Neither barony nor honor might the sheriff enter, save for pleas of the Crown, and even this exception did not exist for the honors. Thus it appears that in England north of the Trent barons, no matter what their tenure, simply as barons had within their baronies the powers, judicial and administrative, of a sheriff, just as they had in Scotland. Can we hesitate any longer to regard barony as an hereditary office to which were attached the rights of public justice included in the formula, sac and soc, toll and team, and infangthef ? If, nevertheless, further proof be demanded that the possession of a court to which these rights belonged was indeed the essence of barony, we have only to turn to the Placita de Quo Warranto for Cumberland (pp. 112-13), where we find that in 1292 the honors of Coupland and Allerdale were divided between Isabella, countess of Albemarle, Thomas de Lucy, and Thomas de Multon as coheirs of William FitzDuncan ; Isabella, by right of ' ainesse ', having Cockermouth Castle and half of Allerdale ; Thomas de Lucy, Pap- caster with the rest of Allerdale, and Aspatrick with half of Coup- land ; and Thomas de Multon, Egremont Castle with the rest of Coupland. Thus Isabella and Multon respectively had the capita of the two honors ; yet neither could claim infangthef, &c., with- out the concurrence of Lucy. Moreover, it was stated in the claim that although Isabella alone appointed the constable of Cocker- mouth Castle, who was also coroner within the liberty, and the bailiff, who returned writs, &c., yet Lucy's seneschal must sit with the constable and they should hold pleas together and share equally the profits of the court, &c., and if the bailiff were con- victed before the justices of default in returning writs, &c., both Isabella and Lucy should be amerced, and that when a writ was returnable into the court at Cockermouth, the bailiffs of both Isabella and Lucy should be present and hear the pleas together and share the profit. It was in this very year that the barons of England classed barony with earldom as an impartible tenure ; yet the only impartible thing about the barony of Allerdale was the barony court and the pleas belonging to it.^ What other ' Plac. de Quo Warr. pp. 189, 193, 216. ' Rot. Hundr. i. 109 ; Plac. de Quo Warr. pp. 187, 200, 212. to most baronies, but it does not stand alone. Chevington, for instance, having passed to coheirs, the three daughters of Hugh de Morwick, these were returned in 1278 as holding the barony ' in partagio * {Northumberland Assize Bolls, p. 356), and joined with their husbands in claiming infangthef (Plac. de Quo Warr. p. 597). Infangthef could in fact be held by one person or in common, but it could not be divided ; see Plac de Quo Warr. pp. 631-2, for the case of the barony of Sutton-on-
 * Allerdale was a great honor to which belonged more extensive franchises than