"The order I shall observe in discoursing on these several courts, constituted for the redress of _civil_ injuries, (for with those of a jurisdiction merely _criminal_ I shall not at present concern myself,[67]) will be by beginning with the lowest, and those whose jurisdiction, though public and generally dispersed through the kingdom, is yet (with regard to each particular court) confined to very narrow limits; and so ascending gradually to those of the most extensive and transcendent power."--3 _Blackstone_, 30 to 32. "The _court-baron_ is a court incident to every manor in the kingdom, _to be holden 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 the 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 instituted within every superior district or hundred."--3 _Blackstone_, 33, 34.