"Court, (curtis, curia aula); the space enclosed by the walls of a feudal residence, in which the followers of a lord used to assemble in the middle ages, to administer justice, and decide respecting affairs of common interest, &c;. It was next used for those who stood in immediate connexion with the lord and master, the pares curiae, (peers of the court,) the limited portion of the general assembly, to which was entrusted the pronouncing of judgment," &c;. Encyclopedia Americana, word Court.
"In court-barons or county courts the steward was not judge, but
the pares (peers, jurors); nor was the speaker in the House of
Lords judge, but the barons only." Gilbert on the Court of
Rxchequer, ch. 3, p. 42.
Crabbe, speaking of the Saxon times, says:
"The sheriff presided at the hundred court, * * and sometimes sat in the place of the alderman (earl) in the county court." Crabbe, 23.
The sheriff afterwards became the sole presiding officer of the county court.
Sir Thomas Smith, Secretary of State to queen Elizabeth, writing more than three hundred years after Magna Carta, in describing the difference between the Civil Law and the English Law, says:
"Judex is of us called Judge, but our fashion is so divers, that they which give the deadly stroke, and either condemn or acquit the man for guilty or not guilty, are not called judges, but the twele men. And the same order as well in civil matters and pecuniary, as in matters criminal." Smith's Commonwealth of England, ch. 9, p. 53, Edition of 1621.
Court-Leet. "That the leet is the most ancient court in the land for criminal matters, (the court-baron being of no less antiquity in civil,) has been pronounced by the highest legal authority. * * Lord Mansfield states that this court was coeval with the establishment of the Saxons here, and its activity marked very visibly both among the Saxons and Danes. * * The leet is a court of record for the cognizance of criminal matters, or pleas of the crown; and necessarily belongs to the king; though a subject, usually the lord of the manor, may be, and is, entitled to the profits, consisting of the essoign pence, fines, and amerciaments
"It is held before the steward, or was, in ancient times, before the bailiff, of the lord." Tomline's Law Dict., word Court-Leet.
Of course the jury were the judges in this court, where only a "steward" or "bailiff" of a manor presided.