These may be considered as freeholders of the better sort, or indeed a sort of lesser gentry therefore, as they were not the absolute dependants, but in some measure the peers of their lord, when they sued in his court, they claimed the privilege of all the German freemen, the right of judging one another: the lord's steward was only the register.

This domestic court, which continued in full vigor for many ages, the Saxons called Hall mote, from the place in which it was held; the Normans, who adopted it, named it a Court-Baron.

This court had another department, in which the power of the lord was more absolute.

From the most ancient times the German nobility considered themselves as the natural judges of those who were employed in the cultivation of their lands, looking on husbandmen with contempt, and only as a parcel of the soil which they tilled: to these the Saxons commonly allotted some part of their outlands to hold as tenants at will, and to perform very low services for them.

The differences of these inferior tenants were decided in the lord's court, in which his steward sat as judge; and this manner of tenure probably gave an origin to copyholders.[57] Their estates were at will, but their persons were free: nor can we suppose that villains, if we consider villains as synonymous to slaves, could ever by any natural course have risen to copyholders; because the servile condition of the villain's person would always have prevented that stable tenure in the lands which the copyholders came to in very early times.