Manorial justice is that which, being linked to a fief, belongs to the person who is its lord and in whose name it is dispensed by those whom he appoints to this effect.

Manorial courts are also called subaltern courts because they are inferior to royal courts .

They are given the surname of “manorial” or “subaltern” in order to distinguish them from royal, municipal, or ecclesiastical courts .

Some people claim to be able to show that manorial courts originated with the Germans, according to what Julius Cesar says in Book VI of The Gallic War : pincipes regionum atque pagorum jus inter suos dicunt controversiasque minuunt [the chiefs of provinces and cantons administer justice and determine controversies among their own people]; but by the phrase principes pagorum [chiefs of cantons] one must not have in mind lords of villages or burgs, for these were officers elected by the people of these places to lead them in peace and in war in such a way that these courts were municipal rather than manorial.

Others, among whom one includes M. Charles Dumolin, maintain that there were manorial courts among the Romans from the time of Justinian. They base this on a text from Novel 80 chapter II, which holds that si agricolæ constituti sub dominis litigent, debent possessores citius eas decernere pro quibus venerunt causas, & postquam jus eis reddiderint, mox cos domum remittere [if cultivators of the soil under the control of (their) masters have a case, the defendants should quickly decide those cases for which they (i.e. the farmers) came, and after they render justice to them, should send them home immediately]; and in the following chapter it states that agricolarum domini eorum judices a se sunt statuti [the masters of those said farmers have been appointed judges by themselves]; but this type of justice attributed by Justinian was nothing other than an economic and domestic justice of masters over their settlers and who were then semi-serfs, as it appears in the tit. de agricolis [notice concerning farmers] in the code; also this same passage adds that when settlers had cases against their lord, that is to say their master, the latter could not be the judge; rather, it was necessary to have recourse to an ordinary judge, showing that this domestic justice bears no resemblance to our manorial justice whose principal attribute is to have jurisdiction in lawsuits between the lord and his subjects; in certain customs these are even the sole cases over which manorial courts have jurisdiction.

Still others less bold are content to link the origin of manorial justices to the establishment of fiefs, which it is known only dates back to the beginning of the first race of kings or rather towards the end of the second. Counts and other inferior officials whose benefices were only for life took hold of justice as a property as well as the lands under their government.

There is even reason to believe that the institution of manorial justices , at least for the simple justices which have no title of dignity, is older than that of the fief insofar as they formed in the time of which we have just spoken, and that these courts are almost as ancient as the establishment of the monarchy, from which stems the origin of the military command that possessors of benefices had over the men that they led to war; this command led to the civil jurisdiction over those who were subjected to their leadership. The king exercised direct command over counts, marquis, dukes, bishops, abbots, and abbesses, whom one knew under the names of druds, leudes, or faithful ; he exercised full jurisdiction over them; the latter related the same way to their vassals, called vassi dominici, vassi comitum, episcoporum, abbatum, abbatissarum [vassals of the lord, vassals of the counts, bishops, abbots, abbesses]; these vassals were like the peers and the assessors of the counts and other greats who rendered justice with them. They themselves held from the king the benefices for which they did homage to the count or other who was their superior, and in the extent of their benefice they had the right of jurisdiction but their power was less great than that of the counts.

These vassals had under them other vassals of an inferior order, from which one sees without doubt the distinction between royal justices and manorial justices and the different degrees of jurisdiction.

In the name of the king, the leudes, counts, and dukes all exercised the full power of justice , called merum imperium [pure power] by the Romans and high justice by us; but their vassals and sub-vassals enjoyed no such right of justice ; in these jurisdictions one more or less distinguished between three degrees of power: namely, high, middle, and low justice . The lords inferior to leudes, counts, and dukes did not acquire the same level of jurisdiction; some had high justice ; others had high and middle; others had middle only; finally others had only low justice . This difference between vassals or lords exercising justice reflects more or less the eminence of their military commands.

Whatever the origins may be, the idea of three types of manorial justices was borrowed from the Romans, who similarly had three degrees of jurisdiction: merum imperium or jus gladii [right of the sword] corresponding to high justice ; mixtum imperium [mixed power], which one can interpret as middle justice ; and the right of justice called simplex jurisdictio [simple authority] corresponding to low justice .

However, one must not treat the three types of manorial justices as the same as the three jurisdictions familiar to the Romans, for the magistrate who had merum imperium handled all types of civil and criminal matters, even without appeal; by contrast among us the power of the lord of high justice is limited to certain cases.

The judge of a lord of high justice has jurisdiction in all civil cases, whether personal or mixed, between his subjects or when the defendant is his subject.

He has the right to name or give tutors, curators, or guardians, to emancipate minors, to apply seals, to take inventories, to make decrees regarding possessions in his territory.

He judges cases between the lord and his subjects in matters concerning the domain and rights as well as ordinary and casual revenue of the manor, even the lease of these properties and rights. But he cannot decide in other cases in which the lord has an interest, such as debts and other obligations or reparations for injuries.

There are still other cases over which the judge of high justice does not have jurisdiction and which are reserved for judges of royal courts. Such cases include the domain of the king or cases in which the king is a party, those regarding royal officers, and those regarding parties enjoying the right of committimus [exemption from lower justice ; the right to have a case heard directly by parlement] if they wish to invoke it, such as cathedral churches and persons whose privileges have a royal foundation.

They cannot judge cases involving the tithe unless it is infeudated and held as a fief by a lord of high justice . Still, a royal judge has the right of prévention [to remove the case to a royal court].

Nor does he have jurisdiction over fiefs, whether noble or commoner, or over complaints concerning matters of benefices.

Formerly he could not judge in the lawsuits of nobles, but recent jurisdiction would seem to authorize him to do so.

According to the ordinance of 1667, title 17: definitive judgments given in summary matters in the justices of duchies and peerages and others, fall within the province of the parlement, notwithstanding opposition or place of origin, when the sentences are only 40 livres and for other justices whose appeals do not go directly to parlement when the sentence is only 25 livres.

In criminal cases, the judge of the lord of high justice has jurisdiction over all crimes committed in the court’s territory, provided that they are committed by domiciled people instead of vagabonds, and with the exception of royal cases such as treason, counterfeiting, illegal assembly, theft, murder on highways, and other crimes excepted by the 1670 ordinance.

He can issue judgments with a variety of bodily punishments, including death. As a consequence, there must be secure prisons and a jailor, and he has the right to scaffolds, pillories, and posts for iron collars. But sentences that condemn a party to bodily punishment cannot be executed unless they have been confirmed by the parlement, whether or not the accused requests it.

The appeal of sentences from courts of high justice in civil cases must go to the judge of the higher lord if there is one and if not to the royal bailiwick. Appeals of cases involving an unqualified judge or denial of referral, as well as those judgments in criminal cases, are carried to the parlement omisso medio [due to negligent mediation].

The judge of high justice also exercises police duties and responsibility over roads.

The lord of high justice enjoys several rights because of his justice , such as the confiscation of movable goods and buildings within his justice except during cases involving the crimes of treason and counterfeiting; he receives disinheritances and vacant inheritances and goods from shipwrecks; he gets half of buried treasures when the person who discovers the treasure is the owner of the property where it is found and one third when the treasure is found on the property of others.

Middle justice , like high justice , has competence in all real, personal, and mixed cases, and in cases involving the rights and duties due to the lord, with the power to condemn subjects to fines as specified by custom. But one cannot authorize judicial auctions in middle justice .

Middle justice includes responsibility for police, paths, and roads as well as the inspection of weights and measures. A judge may do surveying and make boundaries, have messiers elected, and issue fines for non-payment of manorial quitrent.

With regard to criminal cases, the customs are not uniform concerning the powers granted to the lord of middle justice .

Several customs give him the power to judge cases of minor infractions for which the fine does not exceed 60 sols parisis; he may nevertheless apprehend all delinquents found in his territory, imprison and interrogate them, and hold them prisoner for 24 hours, after which, if the crime merits greater punishment than a fine of 60 sols parisis, he must then conduct the prisoner to a prison of a lord of high justice and to have the crime to be prosecuted there.

Other customs, such as those of Picardy and Flanders, attribute to lords of middle justice the recognition of cases of battery that extend to the effusion of blood, provided that these do not include ambush, and to the punishment of petty larceny.

Still others grant to courts of middle justice jurisdiction over all crimes which do not carry the death penalty or mutilation of limbs.

Finally, others such as those of Anjou, Tourraine and Maine, grant jurisdiction over larceny, even grand, and homicide provided that it does not involve ambush.

These differences originate in more or less extensive concessions granted by the king or by the lords whose jurisdictions stand just above the small justices , or as a reflection of the possessions acquired by the inferior lords.

Low justice , which is also called in certain places foncière or censuelle [relating to land] justice , deals with rights due to lords such as quitrents and harvest dues, fines, non-payment of quitrent, exhibition of contracts, and lods et ventes [taxes from the sale of wood or land].

It has jurisdiction over personal cases between subjects and the lord up to 50 sols parisis.

It has police responsibility in its territory and hears cases stemming from damages committed by animals, from light injuries and other misdemeanors for which the fine can be only 10 sols parisis and below.

When the crime requires a more serious fine, the lord of low justice much alert the lord of high justice, in which case the former gets the sum of six sols parisis from the fine specified by the court of high justice.

The judge of low justice can have all delinquents arrested, and to that effect he must have a sergeant and a prison, with the responsibility, very soon after the capture, to have the prisoner led to a court of high justice along with the information but without the power to decide.

The judge of low justice may survey and make boundaries between subjects with their consent.

In several regions there exist two kinds of low justice , one landed or censuelle, which is attached to the rights of all fiefs and which has jurisdiction only over matters concerning the rights of lords, and the other personal, which has jurisdiction over all matters that belong collectively to lords of low justice.

The origin of most manorial courts is so ancient that most lords do not have the original title granting the concession, whether their justice was derived from the military command of their predecessors or whether the latter had usurped it during times of trouble and revolution.

Whatever may be the case for the established justices , they are all supposed to have emanated from the king, and he alone can create new ones or reunite or divide them; and similarly he alone can create new offices.

Manorial courts became patrimonial at the same time as benefices were transformed into fiefs and rendered hereditary.

A single justice can extend over several fiefs that do not belong to the person who has the right of justice , but there is no manorial court that is not attached to a fief or can be sold or alienated without this fief.

Formerly lords dispensed justice themselves; this was still common in the middle of the XIJ [sic] century. Abbots also dispensed it in person with their brethren, which is why they did not have jurisdiction over major crimes such as dueling, adultery, arson, treason, and murder. But ever since lords have been obliged to appoint judges who render justice in their names.

It is not necessary that lords’ judges be graduates; it suffices only that they have other necessary qualifications.

These judges are selected by the lords and swear an oath between his hands. They are removable ad nutum [at will], but they cannot be deprived of office elogio [without reason], without legitimate reason. They must be indemnified for real services and if they undertake onerous charges.

In the simple justices there is ordinarily only a single judge. He does not have a lieutenant unless the lord has issued a license authorizing one.

In the absence of the judge it is the most senior attorney who holds the office.

In criminal cases lords’ judges are obliged to call two law graduates to judge with him. If there are two judges in the court, it suffices to call a single graduate.

The lord is represented in the court by his fiscal procurator or official procurator, who also fulfills the functions of a public minister in other civil and criminal cases. But on appeal of sentences in which the lord is a party, it is the lord himself who pleads his own case.

The judges of lords have a seal to legitimate their sentences. They also have sergeants to execute their decisions and to carry out the other functions of justice .

Lords, even lords of high justice, do not have notary rights or the rights of tabellionage [recognition of seals]; these depend on the possession of a title or on the custom.

The justices of duchies or county-peerages and other great titled lands are only manorial courts , the same as the simple justices . The peerages alone have the prerogative to fall directly under the parlements. The judges of these justices take the title of lieutenant general, and in some places they have a special lieutenant.

In castellanies the judges are called castellans, in simple justices , prévôts or baillifs ; in low justices they may only have the title of mayor, but all of this depends on the custom. See Loiseau, Traité des seigniories, chap. IV and after, Bacquet, Traité des droits de justice , and Peerage, Lord.