"The court-baron is a court incident to every manor in the kingdom, to beholden by the steward within the said manor. This court-baron is of two natures; the one is a customary court, of which we formerly spoke, appertaining entirely to the copy-holders, in which their estates are transferred by surrender and admittance, and other matters transacted relative to their tenures only. The other, of which we now speak, is a court of common law, and it is a court of the barons, by which name the freeholders were sometimes anciently called; for that it is held by the freeholders who owe suit and service to th manor, the steward being rather the registrar than the judge. These courts, though in their nature distinct, are frequently confounded together. The court we are now considering, viz., the freeholders court, was composed of the lord's tenants, who were the pares (equals) of each other, and were bound by their feudal tenure to assist their lord in the dispensation of domestic justice. This was formerly held every three weeks; and its most important business is to determine, by writ of right, all controversies relating to the right of lands within the manor. It may also hold plea of any personal actions, of debt, trespass in the case, or the like, where the debt or damages do not amount to forty shillings; which is the same sum, or three marks, that bounded the jurisdiction of the ancient Gothic courts in their lowest instance, or fierding courts, so called because four were institute within every superior district or hundred." 8 Blackstone, 38, 34.