Bailiff (_Baillif_, or _Baillie_ French; _Ballivus_, Latin; from _balliare_ to deliver, intrust, or commit,) is the name given by the Normans to those ministers of the law whom the Saxons called =gerefa=, _greve_ or _reve_[1]: an appellation which, however corruptly, we still retain in the word _sheriff_, (=scyre-gerefa=, or _shire-reve_,) and by which the bailiff of a manor is in many parts of the kingdom known to this day. The sheriff himself did not, it is true, long continue to enjoy the title of bailiff, which gave place to the more honorable one of _vicecomes_ or _viscount_ (_qui fungitur vice comitis_,) by which name alone he was constantly stiled in all judicial proceedings, till the progressive ascendency of the English tongue restored to him his ancient and original appellation. His county, however, is still called his _bailiwick_[2], he is often mentioned in _Magna Charta_ and ancient statutes along with _alii ballivi_, and is himself frequently included under that title[3]. Between this officer and the bailiff of a hundred, manor or liberty, such a perfect resemblance appears to have subsisted, in all respects, that there cannot be a doubt that both were the produce, if not of the same hand, at least, of the same system. The division of the kingdom into counties, hundreds and tithings, is well known to be owing to the wise policy of the great Ælfred[4]; each county, hundred or tithing is agreed to have been subjected to an officer known by the common name of the =gerefa=; he who presided over the county at large being usually, by way of distinction, called the =heh= or =scyre-gerefa= and sometimes the =scyr=-man, as the others were stiled the =hundred= and =tything-gerefa= or the hundreder, and tithingman[5]. We are but imperfectly acquainted with the duty of this officer till after the conquest. It is said, indeed, that the sheriff, in the time of the Saxons, was not the minister of the King, but the officer of the =Ealderman= or =Eorl=[6]. And what this alderman or earl was to the county, the lord or thain was, no doubt, to his manor or liberty, and what the sheriff was to the former, the inferior =gerefa= or bailiff was to the latter. Certain it is that not only the several courts of which we shall have occasion to speak, but what we now call manors or liberties, existed from a very early period, nor was it possible for the Norman Kings to enlarge, in favour of their own countrymen, the amazing powers which almost every petty Saxon thain or lord exercised in his jurisdiction, either from the nature of the constitution and ordinary course of law, or the liberal grants of the Saxon monarchs: powers which the Norman jurists never found themselves able to express in a different language[7].