Recordation of land conveyances is one of the two differences between the monthly court of a Virginia county and its British prototype. There conveyances were private property and retained in private ownership. Manor houses of old English estates often had a room called the "Muniment room" where deeds, inventories, rent rolls and such family papers, often including copies of wills, were kept. The name derived from a Latin word meaning to fortify or strengthen, since the deeds strengthened the validity of ownership claimed by the holder of the land. The other function of the monthly court in Virginia different from the English Shire Court was the power to probate wills. In England probate of wills was in the prerogative courts of Canterbury and York. Probably since there was no diocesan see in Virginia, Virginia being in the diocese of London, the monthly court offered the most feasible place of probate. It has been noted that there was a limit to the powers of this court and that cases which it could not hear went before the General Court. This court was composed of the Governor and his Council of State. It met semi-annually, 15 April and 15 October, each term lasting at least eighteen days. The Governor presided at these sessions. The presence of five members was necessary for the transaction of business. The _Minutes of the Council and General Court_ are extant for the years 1622-1632 and abstracts for the years 1670-1676. They were published in one volume by the Virginia State Library in 1924 and are helpful in acquiring a general picture of life in the colony in the seventeenth century. The General Assembly was also a judicial body with power to render decisions. At its afternoon session the 22nd day of September 1674, a cause came before the Council and General Court which had originated in Accomack County. The Court made no decision but ordered it "referred to the Assembly by reason it very much concern the country." From that one would infer that causes involving general principles were deemed proper for discussion and decision by the Burgesses who represented the entire colony, since all would be affected by the decision. The Court of Admiralty, the last dispenser of justice in the colony, seems to have been established about 1697 under the governorship of Sir Edmund Andros. Previously such matters as would come within the province of this court had been handled by other judicial procedures, as they were later. The instances of piracy were not numerous enough to justify the maintenance of a Court of Admiralty in Virginia. No records of this court survive.