LAND-HOLDER'S ASSISTANT.
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" We also, by these Presents do give and grant licence to
" the same Baron of Baltimore, and to his heirs, to erect
" any parcels of Land within the Province aforesaid into
" Manors, and in every of those manors to have and hold a
" Court-Baron, and all things which to a Court-Baron do
" belong; and to have and keep view of Frank-Pledge
" for the conservation of the peace and better government of
" those parts, by themselves and their Stewards, or by the
" Lords for the time being, to be deputed of other of those
" manors when they shall be constituted, and in the same to
" exercise all things to the view of Frank-Pledge belonging."
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MANORS, which are of still more ancient date in
England than the establishment of the feudal Law, were large
Districts of Land held by Lords or great personages, who
kept in their hands so much ground as was necessary for the
use of their families, which were called Demesne Lands,
being occupied by the Lords and their servants: The other,
called Tenemental Lands, being distributed among their
tenants. These last were held under two different modes of
tenure, and from those tenures took two denominations, viz.
Book or Charter Land, which was held by deed under
certain rents and free services, and Folkland, which was held
by no assurance in writing, but distributed and resumed by
the Lord at his discretion. Of the last mentioned kind we
shall have no further occasion to speak, as such a tenure was
never introduced in Maryland. The residue of the manor,
being uncultivated, was termed the Lords Waste, and
served for public roads and for common of pasture to the Lord
and his tenants. Manors were formerly called Baronies, and
in later times Lordships. Each Lord or owner of a manor
was empowered to hold a domestic Court called the Court
Baron for redressing misdemeanors and nuisances within the
manor, and for settling disputes of property among the
tenants. This Court is stated to be an inseparable ingredient
of every manor.
The view of Frank-Pledge, usually called a Court Leet,
was a Court of Record held once in the year within a
particular hundred, lordship, or manor, before the Steward of
the Leet, being the (b) King's Court, granted by Charter to
the Lords of those hundreds or manors. Its original intent
was to view the Frank-Pledges that is the freemen, within
the liberty, who were all mutually Pledges for the good
behaviour of each other.
Those Barons or Lords who held of the crown frequently
granted out to others large portions of their manors, which
were also erected into manors, and these inferiour Lords to
(b) In Maryland the Proprietary's Court.
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