A lord of the manor is a person who has the right to have a country house that is a fortified dwelling place arrayed with towers and ditches and who dispenses justice under the title of resident judge. The dispenser of such justice is likewise called lord of the manor . A royal lord of the manor is one who is immediately responsible to the king in distinction to those lords of the manor who are under the jurisdiction of other lords of the manor or of a baron or another titled lordship. See above Chateau.

The origin of these lords of the manor arises from the dukes and counts who, burdened with the government of large tracts of land, appointed officials called castellani [castellers]. These were charged with the responsibility of managing the major villages of their territory, which were in effect small fortresses, called castella [castles] in Latin.

The majority of these lords of the manor were originally merely the caretakers to whom our kings gave, as recompense for their faithfulness, the manor houses that they had occupied earlier only as guardians. These lords of the manor, abused their authority and were consequently stripped of their possessions by Philippe le Bel and Philippe le Long in 1310 and 1316, according to the letters reported in the  glossaire de  M. de Lauriere under the heading lord of the manor .

The function of these lords of the manor was not only to assure the obedience of their subjects, but also to dispense justice, which was at that time an adjunct responsibility of the military government. Thus, in point of origin, these lords of the manor were merely simple officers.

Faber, writing in de vulgaire substitution aux institutions calls them judices foranei [pedlars of justice]. They served only as local magistrates. In the region of Fores, there were those judicial lords of the manor whose power to fine was limited to 60 sols, as you can read in the reports Papon entitled de la jurisdiction des  châtelains  de Forès. There is comparable information concerning the lords of the manor of Dauphine to be found in chapitre i. des statuts, titre de potest. castella,  and Guypape,  decisions 285. and 626.

In several provinces, the name lord of the manor was given to town judges, either because they were occupants of the manor or because they dispensed justice at the gate or in the courtyard of the manor house. These lords of the manor were the ordinary judges of these villages and dispensed the middling justice, like the viscounts, the provosts, or the minor officials in other villages. In some large cities these lords had the power of high justice.

In times of trouble, the lords of the manor of the villages, having authority over armaments and finding themselves far from their superiors, usurped the property in their charge as well as the high offices of their department. The cumulative result of these actions in our day is that the name of lord of the manor is now a noble title and not just a simple office, except in Auvergne, Poitou, Dauphiné, & Forès, where the lords remain simple officers.

These lords of the manor have the right to prevent anyone from building a manor or fortified dwelling on their domain lands without their permission. See above Chateau .

These lords of the manor are inferior to barons and as such are directly dependent on them for authority. In some parts of the country the barons are called grand lords of the manor as Balde observes in his works on le ch. i. qui feuda dare possunt, and on le ch. uno delegatorum, extr. de suppl. neglig. Praelat.

These barons also have two prerogatives over the lords of the manor; the one, that by their rank they have the right to dispense the highest level of justice in contrast to the lords of the manor who have rights only at the lowest judicial level in accordance with their initial establishment. The other prerogative being that the barons have the right to the town enclosure and are guardians of its keys, whereas the lords of the manor hold only the right to the manor house or fortified dwelling place. See Loiseau,  Des seigneuries, ch. vii. le glossaire de  M. de Lauriere, under the word châtelain, and see after,  Chatellenie.