BAILIFF - The word bailiff is of Norman origin, and was applied in England, at an early period, (after the example, it is said, of the French,) to the chief magistrates of counties, or shires, such as the alderman, the reeve, or sheriff, and also of inferior jurisdictions, such as hundreds and wapentakes. Spelman, voc. Balivus; 1 Bl. Com.,344. See Bailli, Ballivus. The Latin ballivus occurs, indeed, in the laws of Edward the Confessor, but Spelman thinks it was introduced by a later hand. Balliva (bailiwick) was the word formed from ballivus, to denote the extent of territory comprised within a bailiff's jurisdiction; and bailiwick is still retained in writs and other proceedings, as the name of a sheriff's county. 1 Bl. Com., 344. See Balliva. The office of bailiff was at first strictly, though not exclusively, a judicial one. In France, the word had the sense of what Spelman calls justitia tutelaris. Ballivus occurs frequently in the Regiam Majestatem, in the sense of a judge. Spelman. In its sense of a deputy, it was formerly applied, in England, to those officers who, by virtue of a deputation, either from the sheriff or the lords of private jurisdictions, exercised within the hundred, or whatever might be the limits of their bailiwick, certain judicial and ministerial functions. With the disuse of private and local jurisdictions, the meaning of the term became commonly restricted to such persons as were deputed by the sheriff to assist him in the merely ministerial portion of his duty; such as the summoning of juries, and the execution of writs. Brande.. The word bailiff is also applied in England to the chief magistrates of certain towns and jurisdictions, to the keepers of castles, forests and other places, and to the stewards or agents of lords of manors. Burrill's Law Dict. "BAILIFF, (from the Lat. ballivus; Fr. baillif, i. e., Praefectus provinciae,) signifies an officer appointed for the administration of justice within a certain district. The office, as well as the name, appears to have been derived from the French," &c;. Brewster's Encyclopedia. Millar says, "The French monarchs, about this period, were not content with the power of receiving appeals from the several courts of their barons. An expedient was devised of sending royal bailiffs into different parts of the kingdom, with a commission to take cognizance of all those causes in which the sovereign was interested, and in reality for the purpose of abridging and limiting the subordinate jurisdiction of the neighboring feudal superiors. By an edict of Phillip Augustus, in the year 1190, those bailiffs were appointed in all the principal towns of the kingdom." Millar's Hist. View of the Eng. Gov., vol. ii., ch. 8, p. 126. "BAILIFF- office. Magistrates who formerly administered justice in the parliaments or courts of France, answering to the English sheriffs, as mentioned by Bracton." Bouvier's Law Dict.