MANORIAL JURISDICTION 199
tice during the Middle Ages.1 Secondly, there was the jurisdic-
tion conferred on the lord by the right to hold the view of frank-
pledge and to hold a court leet. These two jurisdictions were
regalities—that is, they were properly held only by prescriptive
grant from the King: otherwise they were only within the compe-
tence of royal jurisdiction as at the Hundred Court and the sheriff's
tourn. They were originally quite separate things, but in general,
and in the course of time, the two things became associated one
with another, and the court, at one and the same sitting, held
both the view and leet. To add to the confusion the very same
court not infrequently dealt with matters strictly belonging to the
lord's seigneurial rights, so that the Court Rolls contain entries
covering every possible variety of action. Often the two types of
jurisdiction were kept separate on the rolls, although this was by
no means universal. It was the business of the thirteenth-century
lawyer to explain this state of affairs, so that "to whatever quarter
we look the law seems to be emerging into clearness out of a
confused and contentious past. The courts are drawing a line
between franchises and feudal rights, but it is no easy task, and
violence must be done to the facts and theories of former
times."2
But while all this is the legitimate concern of the legal and
constitutional historians, it is not strictly our business. The
peasant, whether rich or poor, and (with reservations) whether
bond or free, was bound to attend the Manor Court, and it was
a matter of chance with what powers he found it endowed. In
contiguous manors the most unequal conditions could prevail,
as we have seen. In the one the lord contented himself with
strictly economic matters, and left it to the Hundred Court or
the sheriff's tourn to deal with other things which a less scrupulous
lord dealt with constantly in his court hard by. We must not hope
to find any uniformity of administration in the various manorial
courts: we must not indeed say "Such and such a court has
such and such a competence", but "So-and-so has such and such
powers". A peasant was fortunate or unfortunate in so far as
his lot brought him under the control of a mild or a grasping
lord, a weak or a strong. So long as we bear this in mind we can
1 Selden Soc. n, Ixiv; and see Villainage, 362, 364.
* Selden Soc. u. aodv.