Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 2, Page 436

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Volume 2, Page 436

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[001] or for [offences in connexion with] our forest or on any other charge¹ for which
[002] according to the law of England he is not replegiable. Lest [we hear] further etc.
[003] for default of justice. Witness etc.’

That no one may have jurisdiction over an approver or confessed thief; the pleas that belong to a seignorial court and to the county court; and concerning the liberties of individuals.

[005] ²We must see what pleas belong to the seignorial court and the county court. There
[006] are some, barons and others, who have liberties, that is, soke, sake, toll and team
[007] infangthief, outfangthief. These may judge in their court [if [the thief] is found
[008] within his liberty seised of his manifest theft, ³that is, hand-having and back-bearing,
[009] because unless he is in seisin, despite the fact that someone sues against him as a
[010] thief, or he is prosecuted by the sacrabar,⁴ cognisance of such thefts will not belong
[011] to the seignorial court, [nor to those of the hundred or wapentake,] nor will it be
[012] able to inquire by the country whether one not found so seised is guilty or not, nor to
[013] decide that the duel be waged between him and his accuser.] [Infangthief means a
[014] thief taken on someone's land seised of his theft, the thief being one of his own men.
[015] Outfangthief means a foreign thief, coming from another's land, who is arrested on
[016] the land of the possessor of that liberty.]⁵ their own thieves and those that are the
[017] men of others if they are taken within their liberties. [It does not follow, however,
[018] that he may bring back into his liberty and judge there one of his own men arrested
[019] outside his liberty. For every man ought to be subject to the law where he commits the
[020] offence.]⁵ They may also have cognisance of affrays and of men beaten and wounded
[021] where felony and breach of the king's peace or the sheriff's are not assigned,⁶ only
[022] that of the lord⁷ and bailiffs. Also of the wounding and maiming of horses, oxen and
[023] other animals. Trespasses of that kind may be given redress by neighbours.⁸ They
[024] may also have cognisance of debts exigible without the king's writ and also of other
[025] plaints without writ.

These pleas belong to sheriffs.

[027] ⁹These pleas belong to sheriffs in the county court. He may have cognisance of
[028] affrays, woundings, beatings and the like, on the default of lords, unless the complainant
[029] adds ‘in breach of the king's peace’¹⁰ or assigns felony; after that the
[030] sheriff must not intermeddle since this concerns

Notes

1. ‘retto’

2. ‘Videamus ... comitatum,’ from lines 8-9; om: ‘Dictum est ... cognoscente,’ redactor's connective

3. Supra 346

4. ‘vel insecutus ... saccabor,’ from line 13; supra 425

5. Infra iv, 249

6. Supra 411

7. Om: ‘regis,’ as LA, MG, OC, Y and E.H.R., xli, 33: ‘pax domini et ballivorum,’ but see B.N.B., no 824, where the word seems erroneous, and Selden Soc. vol. 60, xxxvii

8. Infra 446

9-10. Glanvill, i. 2: ‘Ad vicecomites etiam pertinet pro defectu dominorum cognoscere de melletis, de verberibus, de plagis etiam nisi accusator adiciat de pace domini regis infracta.’: supra 300