Sheriff’s Tourns, Wapentakes and the Liberties of the West Riding

Abstract

Historians of the early modern period have not sufficiently considered the variety of local heritable jurisdictions that continued from the middle ages into the nineteenth century. The central roles of these jurisdictions and their courts in local government, law-enforcement and civil litigation have thus been overlooked. This study first describes the extent of the major liberties in the West Riding in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and their legal and administrative significance. The existence both inside and outside these major liberties of a second tier of liberties that held sheriff’s tourns without the sheriff is then discussed. This tier not only included six wapentake courts, but also parallel courts for distant parts of those wapentakes, alongside other private liberties, whose extents interlocked. Collectively they performed an exclusive role in appointing the law-enforcement officers in every township and in providing local and central oversight of them, even where the county sheriff had no jurisdiction. It is important to emphasise the long continuity of these liberties, notwithstanding many changes in ownership, from the thirteenth century (and before) into the nineteenth century. The study suggests that similar long-lasting institutions may have existed in other counties.