OF HIS QUALIFICATION.
[Sidenote: Sufficient land.]
By _4 E. 3. c. 9._, no sheriff, bailiff of hundred, wapentake, or
franchise, shall be henceforth if they have not land sufficient in the
places where they are ministers whereof to answer the King and his
people, in case any man will complain against them. Re-enacted by _5 E.
3. c. 4._
[Sidenote: Oaths.]
By _27 Eliz. c. 12._ § 2., all persons that shall be admitted to or take
upon them the executing of the office of an undersheriff, before he
intermeddle with the use or exercise of the said office, shall receive
and take a corporal oath upon the Holy Evangelists, before the justices
of assise, or one of them, of the same circuit wherein that county is
whereof he shall be undersheriff, or before the _Custos Rotulorum_, or
two justices of the peace whereof one to be of the _quorum_ of the said
county, for and concerning the supremacy, in such manner and form as that
oath is expressed and declared in one act of parliament made and ordained
in the first year of the reign of our Sovereign Lady the Queen's
Majesty[31], together with which oath he shall in like sort, before the
same person or persons, receive and take another corporal oath as
followeth, (that is to say) I _A. B._ shall not use or exercise the
office of undersheriff corruptly during the time that I shall remain
therein, neither shall or will accept, receive or take, by any colour,
means or device whatsoever, or consent to the taking any manner of fee or
reward of any person or persons for the impanelling or returning of any
inquest, jury or _tales_, in any court of record for the Queen, or
betwixt party and party, above two shillings or the value thereof, or
such fees as are allowed and appointed for the same by the laws and
statutes of this realm, but will, according to my power, truly and
indifferently, with convenient speed, impanel all jurors, and return all
such writ or writs touching the same as shall appertain to be done by my
duty or office, during the time that I shall remain in the said office.
So help me God.
By § 4., every bailiff of franchises, deputy and clerk of every sheriff
and undersheriff, and every other person and persons which shall have
authority, or take upon him to impanel or return any inquest, jury or
_tales_, or to intermeddle with execution of process in any court of
record, shall before he or they intermeddle with any further execution
thereof, receive and take the oaths aforesaid corporally before the
person or persons appointed by this act to minister the same, or before
the head officer of the place (if it be a town corporate), changing only
the words (the office of the undersheriff) contained in the oath
expressed in this act, to such words as are convenient for the
deputation, office, or place in which the party which taketh the oath is
to be exercised in: and if any the said persons limited to take the oath
aforesaid, do take upon him to impanel or return any inquest, jury or
_tales_, or to intermeddle with the execution of process not having
before taken the oaths aforesaid, every [such] person shall lose and
forfeit the sum of forty pounds of current English money, the one moiety
to be to the use of our Sovereign Lady the Queen, the other to him or
them that will sue for the same.
[31] By _1 W. and M. stat. 1. c. 8._, the oath of supremacy is taken
away, and certain other oaths substituted in lieu thereof.