This
was formerly held every three weeks; and its most important
business is to determine, by writ of right, all controversies
relating to the right of lands within the manor. It may also hold
plea of any personal actions, of debt, trespass in the case, or
the like, where the debt or damages do not amount to forty
shillings; which is the same sum, or three marks, that bounded
the jurisdiction of the ancient Gothic courts in their lowest
instance, or fierding courts, so called because four were
institute within every superior district or hundred." 8
Blackstone, 38, 34.
"A hundred court is only a larger court-baron, being held for all
the inhabitants of a particular hundred, instead of a manor. The
free suitors are here also the judges, and the steward the
registrar, as in the case of a court-baron. It is likewise no
court of record, resembling the former at all points, except that
in point of territory it is of greater jurisdiction. This is said
by Sir Edward Coke to have been derived out of the county court
for the ease of the people, that they might have justice done to
them at their own doors, without any charge or loss of time; but
its institution was probably coeval with that of hundreds
themselves, which were formerly observed to have been
introduced, though not invented, by Alfred, being derived from
the polity of the ancient Germans.
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