Judicial Procedure
There were courts for different geographical communities.
In London, the Hustings Court met weekly and the folkmoot of all citizens met three times a year. Each ward had a leet court [precursor to police court].
The vill [similar to village] was the smallest community for judicial purposes. There were several vills in a hundred.
A King's reeve presided over local criminal and peace and order issues [leet jurisdiction] at monthly meetings of the hundred court. However, summary procedure was followed when a criminal was caught in the act or seized after a hue and cry. Every free man over age 12 had to be in a hundred. The hundred was a division of the shire [county]. Usually, the shire reeve, or "sheriff", held each hundred court in turn. In the hundred court, representatives of the villages settled their disputes and answered for breaches of the peace.
A shire [county] was a larger area of land, headed by an earl. All persons residing in the shire met twice a year. They were summoned together by the sheriff, who was appointed by the earl and the King. The sheriff was responsible for the royal administration in the shire. He was responsible for the royal accounts and performed functions like tracking cattle thieves. The shire court was primarily concerned with issues of the larger landholders. Here the freemen interpreted the customary law of the locality. The earl usually took a third of the profits such as fines and forfeits, of the shire court.
A bishop sat on both the shire and the hundred court.
"No one shall make distraint of property until he has appealed for justice in the hundred court and shire court".
This lawsuit between a son and his mother over land was heard at a shire- meeting: "Here it is declared in this document that a shire-meeting sat at Aylton in King Cnut's time. There were present Bishop AEthelstan and Earl Ranig and Edwin, the Earl's son, and Leofwine, Wulfsige's son, and Thurkil the White; and Tofi the Proud came there on the King's business, and Bryning the sheriff was present, and AEthelweard of Frome and Leofwine of Frome and Godric of Stoke and all the thegns of Herefordshire. Then Edwin, Enneawnes son, came traveling to the meeting and sued his own mother for a certain piece of land, namely Wellington and Cradley. Then the bishop asked whose business it was to answer for his mother, and Thurkil the White replied that it was his business to do so, if he knew the claim. As he did not know the claim, three thegns were chosen from the meeting [to ride] to the place where she was, namely at Fawley, and these were Leofwine of Frome and AEthelsige the Red and Winsige the seaman, and when they came to her they asked her what claim she had to the lands for which her son was suing her. Then she said that she had no land that in any way belonged to him, and was strongly incensed against her son, and summoned to her kinswoman, Leofflaed, Thurkil's wife, and in front of them said to her as follows: 'Here sits Leofflaed, my kinswoman, to whom, after my death, I grant my land and my gold, my clothing and my raiment and all that I possess.' And then she said to the thegns: 'Act like thegns, and duly announce my message to the meeting before all the worthy men, and tell them to whom I have granted my land and all my property, and not a thing to my own son, and ask them to be witnesses of this.' And they did so; they rode to the meeting and informed all the worthy men of the charge that she had laid upon them. Then Thurkil the White stood up in the meeting and asked all the thegns to give his wife the lands unreservedly which her kinswoman had granted her, and they did so. Then Thurkil rode to St. AEthelbert's minister, with the consent and cognizance of the whole assembly, and had it recorded in a gospel book."
Courts controlled by lords had various kinds of jurisdiction recognized by the King. "Sac and soc" included the right to deal with land disputes. "Toll and team" included the right to levy tolls on cattle sales and to hold a hearing for men accused of stealing cattle. "Infangenetheof" gave power to do justice to a thief caught red-handed. Sometimes this jurisdiction overlapped that of the hundred court.