Crown pleas included issues of the King's property, fines due to him, murder (a body found with no witnesses to a killing), homicide (a killing for which there were witnesses), rape, wounding, mayhem, consorting, larceny, robbery, burglary, arson, poaching, unjust imprisonment, selling cloth by nonstandard widths, selling wine by nonstandard weights. Crown causes were pled by the king's serjeants or servants at law, who were not clerics. Apprentices at law learned pleading from them.
Between the proprietary action and the possessory assizes there is growing use in the king's courts of writs of entry, by which a tenant may be ordered to give up land, e.g. by a recent flaw in a tenant's title, for a term which has expired, by a widow for her late husband's land, or by an heir who has become of full age from his guardian. For instance: " …Command Tertius that … he render to Claimant, who is of full age, as it is said, ten acres …which he claims to be his right and inheritance and into which the said Tertius has no entry save by Secundus, to whom Primus demised [gaged] them, who had only the wardship thereof while the aforesaid Claimant was under age, as he says…". But most litigation about land is still through the writ of right for proprietary issues and the assizes of novel disseisin and mort d'ancestor for possessory issues. Actions for debt; covenant; and account, e.g by a lord to his bailiff and receiver of his money, were actions in the king's court.
Royal itinerant justices, who were members of the royal courts, traveled on eyre on regular circuits to the counties every seven years. They had an administrative function as well as a judicial function. They gave interrogatories to local assizes of twelve men to determine what had happened there since the last eyre. Information was aquired on royal proprietary rights, escheats, wardships, treasury matters, and official misdoings of royal officers, sheriffs, coroners, and bailiffs, which could be dealt with in an administrative way. (These administrative duties ceased in the first half of the 1300s.) All boroughs had to send twelve burgesses who were to indict any burgesses suspected of breaking the royal law. Every crime, every invasion of royal rights, and every neglect of police duties was to be presented and tried. Suspects were held in gaol until their cases could be heard and gaol breaks were common. Punishment after trial was prison for serious crimes, expulsion from the realm for less serious crimes, and pledges for good behavior for lesser crimes. Fines and amercements both for individual criminal offenses and local communities' faults brought revenue into the Exchequer as profits of justice. The king could increase fines and amercements or pardon a person found guilty. The visitation of these justices was anticipated with trepidation. In 1237, the residents of Cornwall hid in the woods rather than face the itinerant justices. (The court of the justices in eyre lasted until 1971.)
Royal coroners held inquests on all sudden deaths to determine whether they were accidental or not. If not, royal justices held trial. They also had duties in treasure trove and shipwreck cases.
Justices of assize, Justices of the Peace, and itinerant justices operated at the county level. The traditional county courts had lost much jurisdiction to the royal courts and were now limited to personal actions in causes involving usually no more than 40s. The great majority of cases had to do with 1) writ of right for recovery of land, 2) the possessory assizes for the protection of possession, 3) debt for recovery of money owed, such as rent 4) detinue for detention of a chattel, such as beasts and 5) convenant for breach of a contract, later to be limited to contracts under seal. There were also pleas of trespass and claims of fugitive villeins and their goods, nuisances, and encroachments. The action of trespass had broken free of the criminal law, which had been divided into the two categories of felony and trespass. But then the field of tort began to separate itself from that of crime and the more serious trespasses remained criminal while the less serious attached themselves to the civil sphere.
The sheriff still constitutes and conducts the court, assisted by elected coroners. The earl of the county had little to do with its court except to take one-third of its profits of justice.The county court met every three or four weeks, usually in the sheriff's castle located in the chief borough of the county, but some met in the open air. It is attended by suitors, certain freeholders of the county who are bound to attend it, that is, to do suit to it. They are the judges of the court.
The hundred court decided cases of theft, viewing of boundaries of land, claims for tenurial services, claims for homage, relief, and for wardship; enfeoffments made, battery and brawls not amounting to felony, wounding and maiming of beasts, collection of debts, trespass, detinue, and covenant, which now requires a sealed writing; defamation, and inquiries and presentments arising from the assizes of bread and ale and measures. The action of debt was used for five main purposes: 1) money lent, 2) the price of goods sold, 3) arrears of rent due upon a lease for years, 4) money due from a surety, and 5) a debt confessed by a sealed document. A paid bailiff had responsibility for the hundred court, which met every three weeks. Freeholders of these hundreds owe suit to it; these suitors are the judges.
Twice a year the sheriff visited each hundred in the county to hold a turn, a court for small offenses, such as encroachment of public land, brewing and baking contrary to government regulations, and use of dishonest weights and measures. Everyone who held freehold land in the hundred except the greater magnates had to attend or be fined for absence. The sheriff annually viewed frankpledge, in which every layman without land that could be forfeited for felony, including villeins, were checked for being in a tithing, a group of neighbors responsible for each other's good conduct. This applied to every boy who had reached the age of twelve. He had to swear on the Bible "I will be a lawful man and bear loyalty to our lord the King and his heirs, and I will be justiciable to my chief tithing man, so help me God and the saints." Each tithing man paid a penny to the sheriff. The sheriff was the judge in his turn. Coordinate with the sheriff's turn was a leet court, which had private jurisdiction over the same small offences. If a county or a hundred court gave a false judgment, it had to pay a fine.
Manorial courts were those in which a lord had for his tenants. It was presided over by the lord, or his steward, who decided the outcomes of cases, with or without the villeins attending it, based on the customs of the manor. It had a civil jurisdiction, and dealt typically with land issues and minor offenses, such as, actions when the amount at stake is less than 40 s., of debt, detinue, trespass and covenant. 40s. was the equivalent of around 13 oxen or 80 sheep. Usually, the lord's court had a single manor with a single vill.
The cities and boroughs, having a degree of organization and independence, had municipal courts whose jurisdiction was determined by privileges.given by charter from the king or by prescription of ancient origin. Court was held by the sheriff, and after a time by its mayor, at the borough's weekly meeting of its burgesses. The burgesses would take the profits of the court and the tolls and house-rents that had been paid to the sheriff.