Note 124 — [pg 249]No. XXIII.
Reading edition
"The division of the county waz done by freemen, who are the sole judges thereof."[g] Selden, Matthew, Paris, and others, testify that the folk-mote, peeple's meeting or county court, waz a county parliament, invested with legislativ or discretionary powers in county matters. In theze small districts, they appeer to hav been competent to decide all controversies, and make all necessary local regulations. The legislativ, judicial and executiv powers, both civil and ecclesiastical, were originally blended in the same council; the witena-gemote had the powers of a legislature, of a court of law, and of a court of equity over the whole kingdom, in all matters of great and general concern. But this court waz composed of lords, bishops, and majores natu or sapientes, men respected for their age and lerning, who were of the rank of freemen. All the freemen were bound also to do suit in the lords court, and to attend the folk-mote on the sheriffs summons; but twelv were usually selected to sit az judges in common cases.
[g] Selden on the authority of Polydore.
The vast powers of the county court, when the freeholders were all summoned and actually sat in judgement, may be understood by two facts. One, the conquerors half-brother, and Lanfrank, archbishop of Canterbury, had a dispute about certain lands and tenements in Kent. The archbishop petitioned the king, who issued hiz writ, and summoned the freemen of the county, to take cognizance of the suit. After three days trial, the freemen gave judgement for the archbishop, and the decision waz final.
In like manner, two peers of the relm, a Norman and an Italian, submitted a title in fifteen manors, two townships, and many liberties, to the freeholders of the county, whose judgement waz allowed by the king.[h]
[h] Selden. Chap. 48.