Hallam says: "A respectable class of free socagers, having, in general, full rights of alienating their lands, and holding them probably at a small certain rent from the lord of the manor, frequently occur in Domes-day Book. * * They undoubtedly were suitors to the court-baron of the lord, to whose soc, or right of justice, they belonged. _They were consequently judges in civil causes, determined before the manorial tribunal._"--_2 Middle Ages_, 481. Stephens adopts as correct the following quotations from Blackstone: "The _Court-Baron_ is a court incident to every manor in the kingdom, to be holden by the steward within the said manor." * * _It "is a court of common law, and it is the court before the freeholders who owe suit and service to the manor_," (are bound to serve as jurors in the courts of the manor,) "_the steward being rather the registrar than the judge_. * * 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 was to determine, by writ of right, all controversies relating to the right of lands within the manor_."--_3 Stephens' Commentaries_, 392-3. _3 Blackstone_, 32-3. "A _Hundred Court_ is only a larger court-baron, being held for all the inhabitants of a particular hundred, instead of a manor. _The free suitors (jurors) are here also the judges, and the steward the register._"--_3 Stephens_, 394. _3 Blackstone_, 33. "The _County Court_ is a court incident to the jurisdiction of the sheriff. * * _The freeholders of the county are the real judges in this court, and the sheriff is the ministerial officer._"--_3 Stephens_, 395-6. _3 Blackstone_, 35-6. Blackstone describes these courts, as courts "_wherein injuries were redressed in an easy and expeditious manner, by the suffrage of neighbors and friends_."--_3 Blackstone_, 30. "When we read of a certain number of _freemen_ chosen by the parties to decide in a dispute--all bound by oath to vote _in foro conscientia_--and that _their_ decision, _not the will of the judge presiding, ended the suit_, we at once perceive that a great improvement has been made in the old form of compurgation--an improvement which impartial observation can have no hesitation to pronounce as identical in its main features with the trial by jury."--_Dunham's Middle Ages_, Sec. 2, B. 2, Ch. 1. _57 Lardner's Cab. Cyc._, 60.