Page:Massingberd - Court Rolls of the Manor of Ingoldmells in the County of Lincoln.pdf/17

Rh and another jury says whether he is guilty or no, went on at Ingoldmells.

The presenters present those who are guilty of any offence or misdemeanour, who transgress the customs and regulations of the manor, who entertain strangers contrary to the earl’s peace, who carry off wreck, who break the assizes of bread and ale, who obstruct a drain, injure the highway, or trespass in the warren, and the offender is amerced, or otherwise punished according to the nature of his offence. They also present that a free tenant owes fealty or other services, and that a villain is dead, and his heirs owe a fine for entry, or that he has acquired free land and owes a new rent, or that he has left the manor without licence, or that his daughter has been guilty of immorality. It is not told us who imposes the penalty in these cases, but such an entry as that in 9 Edw. II, which tells of a ﬁne for merchet, ‘if the steward will accept this,’ does not favour the view that penalties were imposed at the will of the steward, for there could not be any doubt about his acceptance of a ﬁne he had imposed himself.

The proceedings in the cases of felony recorded on these rolls show the prosecutors ‘appealing’ the felons, who had the right to choose between trial by the court or before the king’s judges. If they put themselves on the court it is the court that that finds them guilty, or not guilty, and, if found guilty, they may ‘therefore be hanged.’ But legislation during Edw. III’s reign provided that justices of the peace should hear and determine all manner of felonies and we ﬁnd no such cases tried in the court of Ingoldmells after that time. In civil cases the defendant might put himself upon ‘the country,’ or ‘wage his law.’ As a rule he put himself upon the country, whereupon the bailiff was ordered to summon an inquisition, which decided not only questions of fact but points of customary law, and lastly the court found the judgment. If the defendant elected to wage his law, he must do so with care and nicety, or he will ‘fail in his law.’ There i an interesting instance of successful waging of the law in 7 Henry V, when the prior of Bullington appeared with 12 compurgators in the court, composed as it was of freemen and villeins, and said that he owed nothing to the