County Court
group · 2 works · 2 mentions · 5 anchored passages
also in the atlas: County Court the place
Shire Court · shire-mote · the county court
in the texts
Dissertations on Early Law and Custom
English territorial court that absorbed part of the old Hundred Court's jurisdiction and later declined.
The Hundred Court, however, was not an institution which had great vitality in our country, since part of its powers seems at an early date to have gone over to the larger judicial body called the County or Shire Court, while another part went back again to the village communities under their newer name of Manors.
in 1217, there is a provision that the County Court shall not meet more than once a month;
The only considerable modification of these principles was made when the modern County Courts were established, courts extremely unlike the old Shire Courts.
An Essay on the Trial by Jury
The Anglo-Saxon local court, identified as both the forum ratifying royal legislation and the chief guardian of civil rights.
“From the fact that the new laws passed by the king and the Witan were laid before the shire-mote, (county court,) we should be almost justified in the inference that a second sanction was necessary before they could have the effect of law in that particular county.
Also, “The liberties of these Anglo-Saxon thanes were chiefly secured, next to their swords and their free spirits, by the inestimable right of deciding civil and criminal suits in their own county courts.
Hallam says, “It was, however, to the county court that an English freeman chiefly looked for the maintenance of his civil rights.