Court Baron - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition court-baron

Definition :

Court-baron, a court which, before 1926 (see COPYHOLDS), although not one of record, was incident to every manor, and could not be severed therefrom. It was ordained for the maintenance of the services and duties stipulated for by lords of manors, and for the purpose of determining actions of a personal nature, where the debt or damage was under forty shillings.

This court might be held at any place within the manor, giving fifteen days' notice, including three Sundays. Of the day when the court will be held; but three or four days' notice have been deemed sufficient. It was frequently held together with the court-leet, and generally assembled but once a year.

The freehold tenants alone were suitors to the Court-baron; and it was essential to the existence of the court that there should be two suitors at the least; for since freemen can only be tried by their peers or equals, should there be but one freeman, he could then have no peer or judge, and consequently he had to appeal to the court of the lord paramount. The Court was held before the freeholders who owed suit to the manor, the steward being rather the registrar than the judge. Neither the lord nor his steward could fine or imprison, and see 1 Ja. 1, c. 5 (Ruff) as to profits.

The tenants of a manor might make bye-laws touching their commons and the like, to bind such tenants as assented thereto, unless they were made by prescription or under an immemorial custom. These laws could never bind strangers. The penalty for the breach of a bye-law was in the nature of a fine rather than amercement,and was not affeerable, i.e., assisable.consult Scriven on Copyholds, rth Edn. Pp. 600 et seq.

Courts-baron do not appear to have been affected by the (English) Law of Property Act, 1922 (abolishing copyhold tenure), and are included in the general words implied in the conveyance of a manor, see (English) Law of Property Act, 1925, s. 62 (3); but not being courts of record, were practically abolished as regards their jurisdiction as Courts of Common Law by the (English) County Court Act, 1867 (30 & 31 Vict. c. 142), s. 28, which provided that no action which could be brought in any county court should thenceforth be maintainable in any inferior court not being a court of record