Court Leet - Introduction

Background

The origins of the Court Leet are difficult to pin down and the Court in Preston was no different. There was a hint at the start of every Preston Court Leet meeting in that a note was made about it also being a "Court Baron" which is a form of Manorial Court - but there seemed to be little manorial in it's function. A closer version to the reality would seem to be the old idea of "Frankpledge" in which citizens (or more correctly "freemen") shared local responsibility to the common good through kinship or mutual responsibility. In fact some Court presentations accuse burgesses of neglecting the franc pledg.

The original records contain two other different and yet similar Courts. The Mayor's Court or Great Court of Election, which was held on the Friday before the Feast of St. Wilfrid the Archbishop (12th October), at which the Mayor, the town's Bailiff, and the town's Sergeant were chosen for the ensuing twelve months by a jury of twenty-four. The other is variously referred to as the Inquest or Inquisition of Office. This latter court, save in its title and its times of meeting, cannot be distinguished from the Court Leet, but would appear to be in every way similar to and to have been possessed of the same powers, though not entitled to be styled the " Great Court Leet," that title being confined to the two courts which were held within a month after Easter and a month after Michaelmas. The Leet jury was made up of freemen and, unlike modern court juries where there are 12 members, there doesn't appear to be a fixed number. If someone didn't turn up, after being summoned and having no "lycence" to be absent, they were fined.

One of the most striking features of the Court Leet was that the members could fine themselves, officers of the Town and even the Mayor if they had been judged to fail to do something or if they had acted against the common good. Phrases like "to the annoyance of the highway" or "a bad example to others" were often used. Another difference between this and a modern court was that it wasn't adversarial. For any particular issue the jury would already have collected evidence, sometimes interviewed members of the Town ("accordinge to the sevall Informacons Given") and then made their pronouncement (known as a presentment) when the Court met. The offender did not normally have any recourse. Finally,the members of the Jury supplied punishment in a number of different forms; generally if they had failed to do something there was a financial penalty - normally multiples of 3s 4d.

Physical punishments included being pilloried, placed in the cuckstoole, tumbrall or, very occasionally, being sent to prison. With financial penalties, the Mayor (and his Brethren or Councell) would often modify the fine or pass the problem onto the affeerers who would temper excessive fines. Often fines were only threatened and would only be imposed if an offender didn't perform a particular task. As an example of this, an offender could be amerced for not scowering a ditch or clearing away a midding by a certain date. If it wasn't done the fine was taken and a further date and possible fine given.

Some legislation or statutes were National and these were referred to in a number of presentments. These include those pertaining to weights & measures, Bread & Ale, the level of tanning of leather, control of brick size, and so on.

The maintenance of the roads and bridges fell to three groups of people; the Town bailiffs, the Supervisors of the Highways and, occasionally, the townspeople who lived in a particular area. The Jurors were quite happy to pass the responsibility for repairs on to other groups of people.

Historical Background

The background to the Court is taken from "The History of the Parish of Preston in Amounderness in the County of Lancaster" by Henry Fishwick. In turn he refer frequently to the Costumal or Ordinances of the Preston Gild (sic)

"These are the liberties of Preston in Aumundrenesse:- So that they shall have a Gild Merchant [Gilda Mercatoria], with Hanse, and other customs and liberties belonging to such a Gild, and so that no one who is not of that Gild shall make any merchandise in the said town unless with the consent of the burgesses. If any unfreed bondman [nativus] dwell anywhere in the same town and hold land, and be in the forenamed Gild and Hanse, and pays lot and scot¹ with the same burgesses for a year and a day, then he shall be reclaimed by his lord, but shall remain free in the town. The burgesses of Preston in Aumundrenesse shall have soc and sac, tol and theam, and infangthef, and they shall be quit throughout all our land of toil, lastage, passage, pontage, and stallage, and from the Lenegeld and Danegeld and Gathewite, and all other custons and exactions throughout our land: and that no sheriff shall intermeddle within the borough of Preston in Aumundernesse, concerning any plea, plaint, or dispute, or any other thing pertaining to the aforesaid town saving the [pleas of the] king's crown. If anyone wish to be made a burgess he shall come into court and give to the reeve [praefecto], 12d., and shall take his burgage from the bailiffs [or praetors]. Afterwards he shall pay to the bailiff's servant 1d. that he may vertify in court that he has been made a burgess.

¹ Scot and Lot refers to paying local taxes and, hence, was eligible to vote. The phrase "scot-free" has a similar origin.

Also when any burgess has received his burgage, and it shall be a void place, the reeve was to admit him so that he end his burgage within forty days under a fine, but if he fails to end it he shall be at the mercy of the court fined 12d.

Also a burgess shall not be bound to come to more than three port-motes yearly unless he has a plea against him, and unless he attend one great port-mote he shall be fined 12d.

Also if any burgess shall have ale [potum] to sell, he shall sell it according to the assize fixed by the burgesses, unless it shall be replaced by the tunnel [tonellus]

Transcription

I first came across Anthony Hewitson's 1905 edited transcriptions of Preston Court Leet several years ago and, after reading these, the germ of idea appeared. Would it be possible to create an early map of the houses and fields of Preston by using the presentments? If someone was complaining about a neighbour then the relative positions of the houses or land could be calculated. At least that was my idea. Langs map of 1776 would be a good starting point and, perhaps, the Court Leet records for around that date could be used to "reverse engineer" the geography of the town. Children and work delayed any progress with this idea until retirement. Then, by serendipity, I was reminded of the promise to myself when reading an article written by T.A.Smith in the 1995 edition of the Journal for the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society. It was titled "A study of Preston Court Leet Records, 1653 to 1835." In this one phrase jumped out at me "A remarkable collection of documents of great value which writers of the town's history have tended to use sparingly because they haven't yet been transcribed". I no longer seemed to have an excuse and this project was started. When transcribing any document, never mind the fact that it covers such a long period and written by different hands, there are several decisions to be made. These include; correcting mistakes, preserving original punctuation (or not), changing spellings, adding explanations. The list goes on. For consistency I have followed the philosophy used in the partial transcription produced by Hewitson. Hewitson originally wrote some articles which first appeared in the Preston Guardian between 1901 and 1903 and were then edited down to produce the 1905 book. Many of the explanations of the terms and background are also taken from that document.

1. Only a minimum of punctuation has been added and this, hopefully, to assist in understanding.

2. Spelling changes have generally also been kept to a minimum. Reversal of letters was quite common in the 17th Century - some of these have been modernised to assist readability.

3. The presentments, as a general rule, start with the phrase "We find and present". For the sake of my sanity this repetition has been missed out.

Any term abbreviated or difficult to understand will have an explanation in square brackets [ ]. More complex terms will be hyperlinked to a separate page.

A minor query is followed by a ? Major querys are followed by ??? Missing or impossible to read are replaced by _____

Hewitson, in his transcriptions, converted the dates from the Julian to Gregorian (modern) form. In the 17th and part of the 18th Century the year ended on the 25th March. This meant that the February Court was held at the end of the year and not the beginning. This may not be clear to modern eyes but I have made the decision to leave, as much as it is possible, the dates in the original form.

Modern technology, in the form of web pages, allows the information to be view from anywhere in the world and, hopefully, correct any mistakes.. Any mistakes that I make can also be easily corrected. By opening up the information to all, in a similar way to Open Source software, it should avoid anyone making a profit out of my efforts.