Note 371 — MAGNA CARTA.

See Coke on Littleton, II. iv. s. 112, and ibid. Second Institute, p. 7. Founding on the later practice of the exchequer, which exacted one hundred marks of relief from a barony, and one hundred shillings from a knight’s fee, he assumed the false equation "1 barony = 13⅓ knight’s fees." If he had known of the earlier practice, which followed the rule of John’s Charter, he might have jumped to another equation, equally false, namely that "1 barony = 20 knight’s fees." There is, in reality, no fixed proportion between the two, either as to extent or value.