They say that none of them was present when the testament was made, and that they know nothing about it, and will say nothing about it. 'And so leaving their business undone, and in great contempt of the lord and of his bailiffs, they leave the court. And therefore it is ordered that the bailiffs do cause to be levied a sum of 40 s. to the use of the lord from the property of the said jurors by distress continued from day to day[833].' This case may stand as a good example both of the sturdy self-will which the peasantry occasionally asserted in their dealings with the lord, and of the opportunities that the lord had of asserting his superiority in a very high-handed manner. But we need not even turn to any egregious instances in which the lord's power is thus displayed. The usual forms of surrender are there to show that, as regards origins, we have the same thing here as in ordinary manors, although the peculiarities of the ancient demesne have brought forward the features of communal organisation in a very marked way, and have held the element of lordship in check. [Free suitors in the halimot.] We have seen that there was only one halimot in the thirteenth and the preceding centuries, and that the division into customary court and court baron developed at a later time. We have seen, secondly, that this halimot was a meeting of the community under the presidency of the steward, and that the relative functions of community and steward became very distinct only in later days. It remains to be seen how far the fundamental class division between free tenants and villains affected the management of the court. As there was but one halimot and not two, both classes had to meet and to act concurrently in it. The free people now and then assert separate claims: a chaplain wages his law on the manor of Brightwaltham that he did not defame the lord's butler, but when he gets convicted by a good inquest of jurors of having broken the lord's hedges and carried away the lord's fowls, he will not justify himself of these trespasses and departs in contempt, doubtless because he will not submit to the judgment of people who are not on a par with him[834]. Freeholders object to being placed on ordinary juries of the manor[835], although they will serve as jurors on special occasions, and as a sort of controlling body over the common presenters[836]. Amercements are sometimes taxed by free suitors[837]. But although some division is apparent in this way, and the elements for a separation into two distinct courts are gathering, the normal condition is one which does not admit of any distinction between the two classes. We come here across the same peculiarity that we have seen in police and criminal law, namely, that the fundamental line of civil condition seems disregarded. Even when a court is mainly composed of villains, and in fact called curia villanorum, some of its suitors may be freeholders[838]. Even in a court composed of free people, like that of