COURT BARON, an English manorial court dating from the middle ages and still in existence. It was laid down by Coke that a manor had two courts, “the first by the common law, and is called a court baron,” the freeholders (“barons”) being its suitors; the other a customary court for the copyholders. Stubbs adopted this explanation, but the latest learning, expounded by Professor Maitland, holds that court baron means curia baronis, “la court de seigneur,” and that there is no evidence for there being more than one court. The old view that at least two freeholders were required for its composition is also now discarded. Prof. Maitland’s conclusion is that the “court baron” was not even differentiated from the “court-leet” at the close of the 13th century, but that there was a distinction of jurisdictional rights, some courts having only feudal rights, while others had regalities as well. When the court-leet was differentiated, the court baron remained with feudal rights alone. These rights he was disposed to trace to a lord’s jurisdiction over his men rather than to his possession of the manor, although in practice, from an early date, the court was associated with the manor. Its chief business was to administer the “custom of the manor” and to admit fresh tenants who had acquired copyholds by inheritance or purchase, and had to pay, on so doing, a “fine” to the lord of the manor. It is mainly for the latter purpose that the court is now kept. It is normally presided over by the steward of the lord of the manor, who is a lawyer, and its proceedings are recorded on “the court rolls,” of which the older ones are now valuable for genealogical as well as for legal purposes.
See Select Pleas in Manorial and other Seignorial Courts, vol. i., and The Court Baron (Selden Society).
(J. H. R.)
COURT DE GEBELIN, ANTOINE (1728-1784), French scholar, son of Antoine Court (q.v.), was born at Nîmes in 1728. He received a good education, and became, like his father, a pastor of the Reformed Church. This office, however, he soon relinquished, to devote himself entirely to literary work. He had conceived the project of a work which should set in a new light the phenomena, especially the languages and mythologies, of the ancient world; and, after his father’s death, he went to Paris in order to be near the necessary books. After long years of research, he published in 1775 the first volume of his vast undertaking under the title of Le Monde primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne. The ninth volume appeared in 1784, leaving the work still unfinished. The literary world marvelled at the encyclopaedic learning displayed by the author, and supposed that the French Academy, or some other society of scholars, must have combined their powers in its production. Now, however, the world has well-nigh forgotten the huge quartos. These learned labours did not prevent Gebelin from pleading earnestly the cause of religious tolerance. In 1760 he published a work entitled Les Toulousaines, advocating the rights of the Protestants; and he afterwards established at Paris an agency for collecting information as to their sufferings, and for exciting general interest in their cause. He co-operated with Franklin and others in the periodical work entitled Affaires de l’Angleterre et de l’Amérique (1776, sqq.), which was devoted to the support of American independence. He was also a supporter of the principles of the economists, and Quesnay called him his well-beloved disciple. In the last year of his life he became acquainted with Mesmer, and published a Lettre sur le magnétisme animal. He was imposed upon by speculators in whom he placed confidence, and was reduced to destitution by the failure of a scheme in which they engaged him. He died at Paris on the 10th of May 1784.
See La France protestante, by the brothers Haag, tome iv.; Charles Dardier, Court de Gebelin (Nîmes, 1890).
COURTENAY, the name of a famous English family. French genealogists head the pedigree of this family with one Athon or Athos, who is said to have fortified Courtenay in Gâtinois about the year 1010. His son Josselin had, with other issue, Miles, lord of Courtenay, founder of the Cistercian abbey of Fontaine-Jean. By his wife Ermengarde, daughter of Renaud, count of Nevers, Miles left a son Renaud, one of the magnates who followed Louis le Jeune to the Holy Land. This was the last lord of Courtenay of the line of Athon. Elizabeth, his elder daughter—a younger daughter died without issue,—carried Courtenay and other lordships to her husband Pierre, seventh and youngest son of the French king Louis VI. the Fat, the marriage taking place about 1150, and the many descendants of this royal match bore the surname of Courtenay.
Pierre, the eldest son, was founder of a short-lived dynasty of emperors of Constantinople, which ended in 1261 when Baldwin (Baudouin), last of the Frankish emperors, fled before Michael Palaeologus from a capital in flames. Baldwin’s son Philip, however, bore the empty title, and his granddaughter Catherine, wife of Charles, count of Valois, was titular empress. Other lines of the royal Courtenays, sprung from Pierre of France, were lords of Champignolles, Tanlai, Yerre, Bleneau, La Ferté Loupière and Chevillon. On the death of Gaspard, sieur de Bleneau, in 1655, his cousin Louis de Courtenay, comte de Cési (jure uxoris) and sieur de Chevillon, had Bleneau, and reckoned himself the surviving chief of his house. He styled himself Prince de Courtenay and his family made attempts to obtain recognition for their royal blood. But their laboriously constructed genealogies availed nothing to this impoverished race. The last “Prince de Courtenay,” an ex-captain of dragoons, died in 1730; his uncle Roger de Courtenay, abbé des Eschalis, who died in 1733, was the last recognized member of the line of Pierre of France.