" Mirror of Justices, 59 60.
In the section " Of Inferior Courts," it is said:
"From the first assemblies came consistories, which we now call
courts, and that in divers places, and in divers manners: whereof
the sheriffs held one monthly, or every five weeks according to
the greatness or largeness of the shires. And these courts are
called county courts, where the judgment is by the suitors, if
there be no writ, and is by warrant of jurisdiction ordinary. The
other inferior courts are the courts of every lord of the fee, to
the likeness of the hundred courts. There are other inferior
courts which the bailiffs hold in every hundred, from three weeks
to three weeks, by the suitors of the freeholders of the hundred.
All the tenants within the fees are bounden to do their suit
there, and that not for the service of their persons, but for the
service of their fees. But women, infants within the age of
twenty-one years, deaf, dumb, idiots, those who are indicted or
appealed of mortal felony, before they be acquitted, diseased
persons, and excommunicated persons are exempted from doing
suit.
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