Sheriff

Kingdoms are divided into counties, and each county has a royal representative to oversee the king’s affairs in it. He is called the county reeve, or more commonly, “sheriff.” A few of the smaller counties share a single sheriff.

A sheriff has the best job in all Britain for one of two reasons. For a few, it is a chance for a man to uphold the high principles of the king and royal justice. For most, however, it is simply a chance to get very, very rich.

Also called a county reeve, the sheriff oversees all of the king’s business in an appointed area. He administers the county law court, collects all royal goods and moneys, pursues criminals, and musters and leads the county militia. Even knights and most barons are subject to the sheriff.

The sheriff represents the king. He is the king’s eyes and his mouth, his hand and his fist. Whatever the king says, the sheriff does. Whatever the sheriff does, it is approved by the king ~ as long as it does not interfere with the royal cash flow. If anyone has a complaint about the sheriff he must take it through regular channels ~ which means he must take it to the sheriff.

Even knights and most barons are subject to the sheriff. The Great Barons have special privileges that allow them to ignore county court and many of the sheriff’s duties. The king is usually happy to sell exemptions to others as well, but they are not cheap.

Sheriffs serve “at the king’s pleasure,” which means they can be removed at any time. The king appoints barons and his favorites to these important positions. Upon taking office, a new sheriff swears an oath to uphold the King’s Law, and to deliver all royal funds twice a year to the Treasury.

## Benefits

The sheriff’s financial stipend of £2 is a paltry sum compared to the tremendous amount of work he does and the responsibility he bears. His primary benefits for doing the job are immaterial: he is trusted by the king, known by many, gains 100 Glory per year, and has the opportunity for many checks. He also can distribute favors by employing relatives or friends on his staff,

## Exceptions to the Rule

Several counties do not follow the general rule of one sheriff per county.

* The sheriff of Llud’s Castle serves Gentian and Salisbury counties.
* The sheriff of Glevum serves Glevum and Clarence counties.
* The Baron of Linden Pool is also the hereditary sheriff of County Linden.
* The sheriff of Londinium serves Thamesmouth and Berroc counties.
* The sheriff of Lambor serves Lambor and Wuerensis counties.
* The Duke of Tintagel is also the Sheriff of County Tintagel.

## Duties

Responsibilities are great for a sheriff, and his duties are many. He is required to carry them out. Neglect raises the ire of the commoners, whose justice is denied, and also prevents the king from collecting his due moneys. Neglect of official responsibilities is the main reason the king removes men from the post.

### Keep the Castle

A royal castle is the headquarters of royal power. When enemy troops are nearby it is a fortress, like any castle, stocked with provisions and men. Here the county levy musters, when called up. In peacetime, it is the sheriff’s center of activity. Here are the central workplaces of the sheriff: the gaol, a holding pound, his office, the temporary treasury, and his private quarters.

### Collect Royal Dues

The sheriff is the one official who collects all dues, whether it is render or coin. These dues include customary payments, annual ferm rents, fines levied upon a whole hundred, the income from county and hundred courts, tolls from Market Towns, and so on. They are collected at the various courts, or at the castle if someone needs to get it after a court judgment.

The king collects a penny here and a farthing there, and it all adds up to a considerable amount each year. The total is equal to six percent of the assized value of a hundred or county. Money is kept safe in the castle, and twice yearly the sheriff brings it to the court or the newly-established treasury at Llud’s Hall. The escort for this treasure caravan varies according to the castle it departs from, the lands it traverses, and the nature of the times.

### Execute Writs

Writs are commands sent by the king, or one of his authorized departments. They must be fulfilled. Some are public announcements; some are commands for someone to appear to be tried, or to

appear for a lawsuit. It might be to command their presence at court. Other writs command the collection of money, the summoning of troops, inquests and surveys of royal lands, and the payment of money to paymasters.

Sometimes writs are for people inside the county, but outside the sheriff’s jurisdiction. This occurs on seigniorialestates that have the liberty of return of writs. In those cases, a bailiff errant carries the writ to the lord responsible, and leaves it to him to fulfill it.

Attendance in court commanded by a writ is mandatory. If the recipient refuses to answer, a series of increasingly harsh penalties are imposed. A simple summons is sent first. If it’s refused, the next writ is to attach (arrest) the culprit. If he escapes this, a third writ orders the sheriff to distrain, or take away, all his movable property (chattels). If the recalcitrant subject still fails to appear, all his chattels are forfeited to the crown. If all these measures fail, the sheriff is ordered to bodily seize the litigant.

### Impanel Juries

Sheriffs don’t do all the legwork themselves, but assign men to assist them. They empower men as members of a jury to look into questions of land ownership, property valuation, damage to the king’s holdings, the age of an heir, or ancient customs and services. The men selected for this duty must comply. Failure to report provokes a fine.

### Inspect and Maintain Public Works

Sheriffs are responsible for inspecting roads and bridges, getting them repaired, discovering whether someone has damaged them, and, if true, punishing whoever is responsible. He often impanels jurors to do the inspecting and report back to him.

### Review the Frankpledge

The frankpledge records every free commoner in the area. At each review every attending man must pay a small fee called cert money, thereby “certifying” his presence.

### Keep the King’s Peace

Violence is endemic. Modern research indicates that medieval times were a thousand times more violent than modern life in western countries. Suppressing this violence is the sheriff’s job, and is a major reason that the commons tolerate their extravagant lifestyles.

The sheriff names a constable for every hundred. His job is to keep “watch and ward,” which is primarily making sure that the curfew is kept. No one goes out after dark, so anyone out during curfew is automatically suspect. The constables leads the “hue and cry” and holds captured prisoners until the sheriff collects them.

### Arrest, Process, and Punish Criminals

If the people capture the criminal before the sheriff or other authorities arrive, they hold him prisoner. If the criminal escapes, the whole village is held responsible and fined. If the criminal is a local man, his whole frankpledge group will be fined even more for letting him escape. After the constable attaches the prisoner, a subsequent escape is a capital offense; recaptured criminals can be beheaded on sight without legal repercussion.

Legal process against criminals begins when a hundred bailiff lodges a complaint at the twice-annual hundred tourn, at the county court, at the county seat, or to the sheriff. Trials are held at the hundred or county court, depending on how severe the crime is.

Criminals can be let free from gaol if certain conditions are met. For petty crimes, a group of men, usually his tithing, can pledge to produce the criminal at trial time.

A payment is always required as security, called plevin. To pay this bail is to replevin. Prisoners of serious crimes cannot be bailed out, and are irreplevisable.

### Gaol

Gaol (“jail”) is not used for gentlemen who give their good word, and who will naturally appear at trial. It is used for commoners, untrustworthy men, and traitors.

Gaol and prison are for holding people until trial. A common gaol is a large wooden cage. More valuable prisoners are kept in stone buildings, perhaps a tower. Some who are escape risks are chained wherever is convenient. The worst are dropped into oubliette, which is a deep hole in a basement with no way out but up.

Incarceration is never a punishment for crime.

### Keep Records

The sheriff has plenty of paperwork to keep, copy, and have ready to be checked by royal justiciars. Every sheriff has a court clerk to write it all down and to read for him. Many types of information are kept: writs and rolls for the county court; writs, tallies, and vouchers for the exchequer; judicial writs being shipped to the king; lists of geldable men; lists of fyrd-worthy, or free men, who are obliged to bear certain weapons when summoned; lists of frankpledge tithings.

### Lease Ferms

Most counties have royal ferms that are leased for five- or ten-year terms. About 73 hundreds are fermed out in all, although the exact number changes quite often. The sheriff arranges new agreements whenever ferms within his county become available.

The sheriff has the right to pay a single fee called a gersoma to the king to hold the lease rights. He then subleases the ferm for whatever he can get, always at a nice profit for himself. Lords are willing to pay the big up-front cost to have the annual profits they can get from a ferm.

### Hold Twice-yearly Hundred Courts

Every six months, the sheriff visits the hundreds in his county to oversee the hundred court. Each sheriff has a tourn, which is a traveling court that visits each hundred court in the county twice a year.

First the sheriff receives a “presentment of offences” from the hundred jury, and appeals, or petitions of injustice, from individuals.

Every hundred has a hundred jury made up of twelve selected freemen, commoners, serjeants, squires, and knights. During the half-year, litigants (that is, anyone who wants to make a case) present their appeal, to their local hundred jury, who presents it at court. Individuals can also lodge complaints directly to the court. Once a person is appealed, the local authority arrests him and holds him, or takes him to prison. If an appealed criminal rats out his accomplices, he is called an approver. Approving helps the criminal only by getting him a more merciful sentence, like having one hand cut off instead of two. It’s not ground for release.

The sheriff settles petty crimes, such as border disputes, encroachments on land, brawling, dishonest brewing or baking, changing or blocking a stream, and so on, immediately. Penalties for these are in the form of fines, levied against the wrongdoer and collected by the court.

More serious accusations like housebreaking, robbery, brawling where blood is drawn, homicide, rape, arson, and treason are processed and sent to the county court, where proceedings are done to assure the indicted man appears at court. Most of these are irreplevisable.

View of frankpledge is also done at each hundred court. The names of all men age twelve and older are recorded, the new men are assigned to tithings, cert money is paid, and penalties are assessed for men who did not show.

The clerk records it all.

### Hold County Court

Every month the sheriff heads a court session for the entire county for very important business. It lasts two days. All vassals and free men must attend. They all “owe suit” to the court, which means they must serve when asked to perform some official duty. Every case requires several people, called suitors, to be involved. They may be witnesses, jurors of various types, compurgators, and so on. The amount of land that a holder has determines how many suits he owes. Common farmers owe at least one suit, while vassals and knights owe at the rough approximation of one suit per £10 held.

The presence of resident knights is especially important to keep the justice of the county. These gentlemen are sometimes called doomsmen, since doom is synonymous with judgment in the medieval world. Sometimes a suitable stand-in can be sent to court, but no one is exempted except by the king’s leave.

The first day is for legal work. At the start, the sheriff, or a representative, reads aloud the king’s proclamations. These are official news items from the king. They might include new laws or taxes, declarations of war, summons of the levy, coming appearances of the king or his representatives, and so on.

Second, all sentences of outlawry are read aloud. Outlaws lose all legal rights and may be killed on sight. The announcements include all outlaws of the kingdom, since they rarely stay at home.

Finally, other information is read aloud. This could include royal births, lands granted, changes in lordships, upcoming fairs, news about wars, hiring of masons or carpenters, and so on.

Then the business of justice begins. Juries are chosen and sworn in, complaints are heard, witnesses and compurgators present their facts, judgments are made, and punishments carried out.

Punishments are inflicted immediately after the sheriff pronounces sentence. The penalties for all crimes are known from Ancient Law and Custom. Monetary penalties cover most petty crimes. Serious crimes that break the king’s peace have physical punishments. Only execution is delayed, and then only until a coroner from the king is present to witness it.

The second day of county court is called retrocomitatus, or “rerecounty” and is to collect money. Royal bailiffs pay their hundred fees, stewards of private hundreds pay ferm fees, royal tenants pay their assized rents, moneyers pay their fees, and everyone at court forks out for fees variously called wardsilver, horderesgyft, tourn money, lathescot, hidage, and sheriff’s aid. These are all carefully recorded.

### Summon the Posse Comitatus

The posse comitatus is the military arm of the county ~ the levy. Membership includes all law-worthy and fyrd-worthy men. The sheriff can summon them all, or as many as needed, to enforce the law. The posse comitatus is summoned to conduct searches, arrest criminals, hunt down robbers ~ even to tear down castles.

### Lead the County Levy

The sheriff also leads the local levy to war. The levy of the county’s commoners can be summoned only by royal command, and it is called up only if the kingdom is invaded, or there is urgent need to suppress nearby rebellion. They are sometimes summoned to invade a foreign land, but if they are forced to go far from their homes they generally desert in such numbers that there are too many of them to punish afterwards.

When summoned, poor men bring sticks and rakes; burghal men (from royal market towns) must have spears, shields, and armor. Rich men must be armed and mounted as sergeants.

### Purchase and Collect Supplies

The king has the royal right of purveyance. This means that, through his sheriff, he can take whatever supplies are needed, leaving only a receipt to be paid later. This might be to feed his highness on a visit, gift someone’s kitchen, provide provisions for the levy, or just for the requisition of horses, carts, lumber, coal, or any goods as needed.

### Make Full Payment and Accounting to the Exchequer

Twice a year, at Easter and at Michaelmas (September 29), the sheriff must appear in person with all of the money he has collected for the last six months. He turns it in, it is counted, and he gets a receipt. Then he gets a receipt for the stacks of receipts, notes, vouchers, and other paperwork, and is dismissed. A battery of clerks scrutinizes everything down to the penny, cross-checking it with writs, as well other records. They report the results to the treasurer, who may or may not speak to the king and justiciars of the exchequer.

After a few days, the sheriff is summoned back and receives his report. If his payments are short, he receives a writ to pay it immediately, along with a fine that is about triple the amount of the shortage. If it is correct, or at least within acceptable limits, the treasurer lets it pass.

### Maintain a Staff

The sheriff hires and fires everyone on his staff, except for the garrison of his castle.

## The Sheriff is a Busy Man

The sheriff must hold a county court every month, visit every hundred in his shrievalty twice per year, and deliver the profits of the court to the king’s treasury each Easter and Michaelmas (September 29). The latter dates are fixed, and so are the county court dates; they are so important that they must be held regularly. The sheriff has many other duties that may take him away from a schedule, however, so the hundred-court visits vary from year to year. Hundreds meet each three or four weeks, depending on the county, and the sheriff will choose which of those to attend, as is convenient for him.

## Financial Opportunities

Sheriffs do not get paid much. However, they have many opportunities to enrich themselves through other means. A variety of methods can be exploited, most of which are considered to be an “unspoken” but acceptable benefit. They include perqs, bribes, exploitation, and flat-out larceny.

## Employment Opportunities

Sheriffs need a staff to carry out their many duties. Most of these jobs are not suitable for knights, but are the type of opportunity that can be used for their other relatives. Perhaps the third son (“prayer son”) becomes the county clerk or receiver, while an esquire becomes the county bailiff.

### Knights

#### Under-sheriff

An assistant to the sheriff, fully empowered to do everything a sheriff does.

### Clerics

These jobs require knowledge of the monks’ literacy skills.

#### County Clerk

The record keeper for the county, since sheriffs are often illiterate. He travels everywhere with the sheriff, recording all findings.

#### County Receiver

This clerk is on permanent duty at the castle. He is empowered to receive (and record) payments and presentments when the sheriff is absent.

### Commoners

Here are some of the jobs available to non-knights in assisting the sheriff’s office.

#### Court Bailiff and Bailiff-errant

These are high-ranking assistants who do delivery, collections, and reporting on-site or far from the sheriff.

#### Bedel

A field worker, empowered to distrain beasts, attach criminals, act as a juror, and generally be the tough guy.

#### Sub-bedel

When one bedel is not enough, he gets one or more assistants.

#### Serjeant of the court

Serjeants perform various tasks like carrying messages, summons, etc.

### The Hundred Bailiff

The bailiff of a hundred is an important man. This rank is about as high as a commoner can get, outside of a castle or the king’s household. He is the ranking regional authority who reports directly to the sheriff, who is the king’s man.

* Execute the mandates of the king’s court by writs and summons, execute the judgments of the county court and hundred court
* Execute summons, attachments and distraints by the sheriff’s command
* Hold the hundreds court
* Certify inquests to the steward
* Levy fines and amercements
* Keep records and hear pleas of contracts up to £1/2
* Collect and pay the annual income from the fee farms to the sheriff