There was a council like that in Durham, whose members, appointed by the lord proprietor, held all the great offices of state.
Outside of the council the most important officer was the sheriff, who, like the sheriff of Durham, executed the commands of the governor and the courts, of which there were (in addition to the council) the county court and the manorial courts, answering respectively to the court of quarter-sessions and the courts baron and leet in Durham.

As for the manorial courts, feudal relicts transplanted to America, they sprang from Lord Baltimore's attempt to build up an aristocracy like that which attended upon the bishop in his palace in Durham.

In his "Conditions for Plantations," August 8, 1636, after providing liberally for all who brought emigrants to the colony, he directed that every one thousand acres or greater quantity so given to any adventurer "should be erected into a manor with a court-baron and court-leet to be from time to time held within every such manor respectively." There were many grants of one thousand acres or more, and Maryland "lords of the manor" became quite common.

These "lords" were the official heads of numerous tenants and leaseholders who were settled on their large estates.

Yet the manor, as a free-governing community, was a stronghold of liberty.