[603]. Cf. infra, under c. 39.
[604]. House of Lords, 255.
[605]. Cited by Pike, Ibid.
[606]. III., folio 116 b.
[607]. Pike, House of Lords, 256–7, shows how barons were assessed sometimes—(a) before the barons of exchequer; or (b) before the full King’s Council; or (c) at a later date, even before the justices of Common Pleas. They were never assessed, however, before the justices on circuit. Is it possible that one reason why the name Barones Scaccarii was retained as the official title of the four justices who presided over the Court of Exchequer was the Crown’s wish to preserve the fiction that these official “barones” were really peers of the holders of "baronies"?
[608]. Madox, I. 535-8.
[609]. See Madox, Ibid., and also Pike, House of Lords, 257.
[610]. See Pike, Ibid.
[611]. Madox, Baronia Anglica, 106, seems to view these sums as fixing a minimum, not a maximum. “If a baron was to be amerced for a small trespass, his amercement was wont to be 100s. at the least; he might be amerced at more, not at less. This, I think, was the meaning of the term amerciater ut baro.” He adds that a commoner for a similar trespass would get off with 10s., 20s., or 40s.