[1] Cf. the German _Hof_ for court-yard, court of law, and royal
court.
[2] The sittings are held in the court-house in the Old Bailey. The
old sessions house was destroyed in the Gordon riots of 1780. The
building erected in its place, although enlarged from time to time,
was very incommodious, and a new structure, occupying the site of
Newgate Prison, which was pulled down for the purpose, was completed
in 1907.
COURT BARON, an English manorial court dating from the middle ages and
still in existence. It was laid down by Coke that a manor had two
courts, "the first by the common law, and is called a court baron," the
freeholders ("barons") being its suitors; the other a customary court
for the copyholders. Stubbs adopted this explanation, but the latest
learning, expounded by Professor Maitland, holds that court baron means
_curia baronis_, "_la court de seigneur_," and that there is no evidence
for there being more than one court. The old view that at least two
freeholders were required for its composition is also now discarded.
Prof. Maitland's conclusion is that the "court baron" was not even
differentiated from the "court-leet" at the close of the 13th century,
but that there was a distinction of jurisdictional rights, some courts
having only feudal rights, while others had regalities as well. When the
court-leet was differentiated, the court baron remained with feudal
rights alone. These rights he was disposed to trace to a lord's
jurisdiction over his men rather than to his possession of the manor,
although in practice, from an early date, the court was associated with
the manor. Its chief business was to administer the "custom of the
manor" and to admit fresh tenants who had acquired copyholds by
inheritance or purchase, and had to pay, on so doing, a "fine" to the
lord of the manor. It is mainly for the latter purpose that the court is
now kept. It is normally presided over by the steward of the lord of the
manor, who is a lawyer, and its proceedings are recorded on "the court
rolls," of which the older ones are now valuable for genealogical as
well as for legal purposes.
See _Select Pleas in Manorial and other Seignorial Courts_, vol. i.,
and _The Court Baron_ (Selden Society). (J. H. R.)
COURT DE GEBELIN, ANTOINE (1728-1784), French scholar, son of Antoine
Court (q.v.), was born at Nimes in 1728. He received a good education,
and became, like his father, a pastor of the Reformed Church. This
office, however, he soon relinquished, to devote himself entirely to
literary work. He had conceived the project of a work which should set
in a new light the phenomena, especially the languages and mythologies,
of the ancient world; and, after his father's death, he went to Paris in
order to be near the necessary books. After long years of research, he
published in 1775 the first volume of his vast undertaking under the
title of _Le Monde primitif, analyse et compare avec le monde moderne_.
The ninth volume appeared in 1784, leaving the work still unfinished.
The literary world marvelled at the encyclopaedic learning displayed by
the author, and supposed that the French Academy, or some other society
of scholars, must have combined their powers in its production. Now,
however, the world has well-nigh forgotten the huge quartos. These
learned labours did not prevent Gebelin from pleading earnestly the
cause of religious tolerance. In 1760 he published a work entitled _Les
Toulousaines_, advocating the rights of the Protestants; and he
afterwards established at Paris an agency for collecting information as
to their sufferings, and for exciting general interest in their cause.
He co-operated with Franklin and others in the periodical work entitled
_Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amerique_ (1776, sqq.), which was
devoted to the support of American independence. He was also a supporter
of the principles of the economists, and Quesnay called him his
well-beloved disciple. In the last year of his life he became acquainted
with Mesmer, and published a _Lettre sur le magnetisme animal_. He was
imposed upon by speculators in whom he placed confidence, and was
reduced to destitution by the failure of a scheme in which they engaged
him. He died at Paris on the 10th of May 1784.
See _La France protestante_, by the brothers Haag, tome iv.; Charles
Dardier, _Court de Gebelin_ (Nimes, 1890).
COURTENAY, the name of a famous English family. French genealogists head
the pedigree of this family with one Athon or Athos, who is said to have
fortified Courtenay in Gatinois about the year 1010. His son Josselin
had, with other issue, Miles, lord of Courtenay, founder of the
Cistercian abbey of Fontaine-Jean. By his wife Ermengarde, daughter of
Renaud, count of Nevers, Miles left a son Renaud, one of the magnates
who followed Louis le Jeune to the Holy Land. This was the last lord of
Courtenay of the line of Athon. Elizabeth, his elder daughter--a younger
daughter died without issue,--carried Courtenay and other lordships to
her husband Pierre, seventh and youngest son of the French king Louis
VI. the Fat, the marriage taking place about 1150, and the many
descendants of this royal match bore the surname of Courtenay.
Pierre, the eldest son, was founder of a short-lived dynasty of emperors
of Constantinople, which ended in 1261 when Baldwin (Baudouin), last of
the Frankish emperors, fled before Michael Palaeologus from a capital in
flames. Baldwin's son Philip, however, bore the empty title, and his
granddaughter Catherine, wife of Charles, count of Valois, was titular
empress. Other lines of the royal Courtenays, sprung from Pierre of
France, were lords of Champignolles, Tanlai, Yerre, Bleneau, La Ferte
Loupiere and Chevillon. On the death of Gaspard, sieur de Bleneau, in
1655, his cousin Louis de Courtenay, comte de Cesi (_jure uxoris_) and
sieur de Chevillon, had Bleneau, and reckoned himself the surviving
chief of his house. He styled himself Prince de Courtenay and his family
made attempts to obtain recognition for their royal blood. But their
laboriously constructed genealogies availed nothing to this impoverished
race. The last "Prince de Courtenay," an ex-captain of dragoons, died in
1730; his uncle Roger de Courtenay, abbe des Eschalis, who died in 1733,
was the last recognized member of the line of Pierre of France.
A younger branch of the first house of Courtenay came from Josselin,
second son of Josselin, son of Athon. This Josselin, a notable crusader,
went to the Holy Land with the count of Blois, and held by the sword for
eleven years the county of Edessa, given him by his cousin King Baldwin
II. Edessa was won back by the infidel from his son Josselin, who died a
prisoner in Aleppo in 1147. A grandson, also a Josselin, was seneschal
of the kingdom of Jerusalem.
In England a house of Courtenay has flourished with varying fortunes
since the reign of the first Angevin king. The monks of Ford, to whom
they were benefactors, complacently set down their patrons as the
offspring of the royal Courtenays, of whose origin they had some dim
knowledge, deriving them from "Florus," son of Louis the Fat. A
comparison of dates destroys the story. But they were, doubtless,
Courtenays of the stock of Athon. Josselin, the first count of Edessa,
has been suggested by modern writers as their founder, but the name
Reinaud, borne by the first known ancestor of the English house,
suggests that they may have sprung from a younger son of Josselin I. of
Courtenay by his marriage about 1095 with Ermengarde, daughter of
Reinaud, count of Nevers. It is also notable that the English Courtenays
have, from the first introduction of armorial bearings, borne with
various differences the three red roundels in a golden field, the arms
of the Courtenays in France, the shield of the earls of Devonshire being
identical with that of the lords of La Ferte Loupiere.
Several Courtenays whose kinship cannot be exactly ascertained, appear
in English records of the 12th century. One of them, Robert de
Courtenay, married the daughter and heir of Reynold fitz Urse, the
leader of the murderers of Archbishop Thomas Becket. His son, William, a
Shropshire baron, held the castle of Montgomery, as heir by his mother
of Baldwin de Buslers, or Bollers, to whom Henry I. had given it with
his "niece" Sibil de Falaise. This William married Ada of Dunbar,
daughter of Patrick, earl of Dunbar, but died in the reign of King John,
without issue.
Reinaud de Courtenay, ancestor of the main English line, may well have
been a brother of the Robert above named. The English pedigrees confuse
him with his son of the same name. He was a favourite with Henry II.,
his attestations of charters showing him as a constant companion at home
and abroad of the king, whom he followed to Wexford in the Irish
expedition of 1172. Henry gave him Berkshire lands at Sutton, still
known as Sutton Courtenay, by a charter to which the date of 1161 can be
assigned. In England he had to wife Maude, daughter of Robert fitz Roy
by Maude of Avranches, the elder Maude being the heir of the house of
Brionne. By her, who survived him, dying before January 1224, he had no
issue, but by a wife who may have died before his coming to England he
had, with other issue, Robert and Reinaud. Robert, who succeeded to
Sutton about 1192, was husband of Alice de Rumeli, widow of Gilbert
Pipard, and one of the three sisters and co-heirs of William, the boy of
Egremond, of whose drowning in the Strid Wordsworth has made a ballad.
Robert died childless in 1209. Of his brother Reinaud or Reynold de
Courtenay little is known, save that he was a married man in 1178 when
he and his wife Hawise were given by the pope a licence to have a free
chapel at Okehampton. This wife, Hawise de Ayencourt, was, with Maude
his father's second wife, a daughter and co-heir of Maude of Avranches,
her father being the lord of Ayencourt, first husband of the last named
Maude. Her great inheritance included the honour of Okehampton in
Devonshire of which, as a widow, she had livery about 1205. Her son,
Robert de Courtenay, succeeded to her land in 1219, having been his
uncle Robert's heir in Sutton ten years before. Like his father he
advanced his house by a great marriage, his wife being Mary, the younger
daughter of William de Vernon, earl of Devon and of the Isle of Wight.
He was succeeded in 1242 by his son John, who by Isabel, a daughter of
Hugh de Vere, earl of Oxford, has issue Hugh, whose wife was Eleanor,
daughter of the earl of Winchester, elder of the two favourites of
Edward II. The son of this marriage, another Hugh, followed his father
at Okehampton in 1291. Two years later died Isabel, surviving sister and
heir of Baldwin de Reviers, earl of Devon, and widow of William de Forz,
last earl of Aumerle (Albemarle). On her death-bed she had granted her
lordship of the Wight to the king, but her cousin Hugh de Courtenay
succeeded her in the unalienated estates of the house of Reviers. He was
summoned as a baron on the 6th of February 1298/9, and in 1300 he
displayed his banner before the castle of Caerlaverock. Claiming the
"third penny" of the county of Devon, he was refused by the exchequer as
he did not claim in the name of an earl. Following, however, a writ of
inquiry, a patent of the 22nd of February 1334/5 declared him earl of
Devon and qualified to take such style as his ancestors, earls of Devon,
were wont to take. Hugh, his son, the second earl, a warrior who drove
the French back from their descent on Cornwall in 1339, made another of
the brilliant marriages of this family, his wife being Eleanor, daughter
of Humfrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford and Essex, by Elizabeth daughter
of Edward I. Their eldest son, Sir Hugh de Courtenay, shared in the
honours of Crecy and Calais, and was one of the knights founders of the
order of the Garter, the stall-plate of his arms being yet in St
George's chapel at Windsor. This knight died in the lifetime of the
earl, as did his only son Hugh, summoned as a baron on the 3rd of
January 1370/1, a companion at Najara of the Black Prince, whose
step-daughter Maude of Holland he had married. The earl was therefore
succeeded by his grandson Edward (son of Edward his third son), earl
marshal of England in 1385, who died blind in 1419, the year after the
death of Sir Edward his heir apparent, one of the conquerors at
Agincourt. Hugh, a second son of Earl Edward, succeeded as fourth earl
of the Courtenay line. By his wife, a sister of the renowned Talbot,
earl of Shrewsbury, he had issue Thomas the fifth earl, a partisan of
Henry VI., whose wife was Margaret Beaufort, daughter of John, earl of
Somerset. The effigy of this grandaughter of John of Gaunt, with the
shields of Courtenay and Beaufort above it, is in Colyton church. It is
less than life size, a fact which has given rise to a village legend
that it represents "Little choke-a-bone," an infant daughter of the
tenth earl, who died "choked by a fish bone." In spite of the evidence
of the shields and the 15th century dress of the effigy, the legend has
now been strengthened by an inscription upon a brass plate, and in the
year 1907 ignorance engaged a monumental sculptor to deface the effigy
by giving its broken features the newly carved face of a young child.
Both sons of this marriage fell in the Wars of the Roses, Thomas the
sixth earl being taken at Towton by the Yorkists and beheaded at York in
1462, his younger brother Henry having the same fate at Salisbury in
1466.
The earldom being extinguished by attainder, Sir Humphrey Stafford was
created earl of Devon in 1469, but in the same year, having retired with
his men from the expedition against Robin of Redesdale, another earl of
Devon suffered at the headsman's hands, his patent being afterwards
annulled by a statute of Henry VII. On the restoration of Henry VI. John
Courtenay, only surviving brother of Thomas and Henry, was restored to
the earldom by the reversal of attainder. He, too, died in the
Lancastrian cause, being killed on the 4th of May 1471 at Tewkesbury,
where he led the rear of the host. The representation of the Reviers
earls and of the Courtenay barony fell then to his sisters and their
descendants. Beside him at Tewkesbury died his cousin Sir Hugh Courtenay
of Boconnoc, son of Hugh, a younger brother of the blind earl, leaving a
son Edward, who thus became the heir male of the house though not its
heir general. Joining in the cause which had cost so many of his kinsmen
their lives, he and his brother Walter shared the duke of Buckingham's
rising. On its failure they fled into France to the earl of Richmond,
beside whom Sir Edward fought at Bosworth. By a patent of the 26th of
October 1485 he was created earl of Devon with remainder to the heirs
male of his body, and by an act of 1485 he was restored to all honours
lost in his attainder by the Yorkist parliament. He defended Exeter
against Warbeck's rebels and was a knight of the Garter in 1489, dying
twenty years later, when the earldom became again forfeit by his son's
attainder. That son, William Courtenay, had drawn the jealousy of Henry
VII. by a marriage with Catherine, sister of the queen and daughter of
King Edward IV., the Yorkist sovereign whose hand had been so heavy on
the Courtenays. After the queen's death, Henry sent his wife's
brother-in-law to the Tower on a charge of corresponding with Edmund
Pole, an attainder following. But on the accession of Henry VIII., the
young king released his uncle, who although styled an earl was not fully
restored in blood at his death in 1511. His son Henry Courtenay obtained
from parliament in December 1512 a reversal of his father's attainder,
thus succeeding to the earldom of his grandfather. At the Field of Cloth
of Gold he ran a course with the king of France. He was knight of the
Garter and on the 15th of June 1525 had a patent as marquess of Exeter.
Profiting by the suppression of the monasteries he increased his estate,
his power being all but supreme in the west country. But Cromwell was
his enemy and the royal strain in his blood was a dangerous thing.
Involved in correspondence with Cardinal Pole, he was sent to the Tower
with his wife and his young son, and on the 9th of December 1538 he was
beheaded as a traitor. The misfortunes of the house were heavy upon the
son, who at twelve years old was a prisoner for the sake of his high
descent. His honours had been forfeited, and release did not come until
the accession of Queen Mary, who took him into favour. Noailles the
ambassador found him _le plus beau et le plus agreable gentilhomme
d'Angleterre_, and he had some hopes of becoming king consort. The queen
created him earl of Devonshire by a patent of the 3rd of September 1553
and in the next month he was restored in blood. But, disappointed in his
hopes, he formed some wild plans for marrying the Lady Elizabeth and
making her queen. He could raise Devon and Cornwall. Wyat did raise
Kent, but the plot was soon crushed. The earl was sent back to the Tower
and thence to Fotheringhay. At Easter of 1555 he was released on parole
and exiled, dying suddenly at Padua in 1556. His co-heirs were the
descendants of the four sisters of Earl Edward (d. 1519), the wives of
four Cornish squires, and with him was extinguished, to the belief of
all men, the Courtenays' earldom of Devon. His heir male was Sir William
Courtenay, his sixth cousin once removed, head of a knightly line of
Courtenays whose seat was Powderham Castle, a line which, during the
civil wars, stood for the White Rose. Sir William, who is said to have
been killed at St Quintin in 1557, was succeeded by his son, another Sir
William, one of the undertakers for the settling of Ireland, where the
family obtained great estates. William Courtenay of Powderham, of whose
marriage with the daughter of Sir William Waller (the parliament's
general) it is remarked that the years of bride and bridegroom added
together were less than thirty when their first child was born, was
created a baronet by writ of privy seal in February 1644, the patent
being never enrolled. His great grandson, Sir William Courtenay, many
years a member of parliament, was on the 6th of May 1762, ten days
before his death, created Viscount Courtenay of Powderham Castle.
Since the death at Padua in 1556 of Edward, earl of Devon, that ancient
title had been twice revived. Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, who was
created earl of Devon in 1603, died without lawful issue in 1606. In
1618 Sir William Cavendish, son of the famous Bess of Hardwick, was
given the same title, which is still among the peerage honours of the
ducal house descending from him. For the Courtenays, who had without
protest accepted a baronetcy and a viscounty, their earldom was dead. In
the reign of William IV., the third and last Viscount Courtenay was
living unmarried in Paris, an exile who for sufficient reasons was
keeping out of the reach of the English criminal law. In the name of
this man, his presumptive heir male, William Courtenay, clerk assistant
of the parliament, succeeded in persuading the House of Lords that the
Courtenay earldom under the patent of 1553 was still in existence, the
plea being that the terms of the remainder--to him and his heirs male
for ever--did not limit the succession to heirs male of the body of the
grantee. Five other cases wherein the words _de corpore suo_ had been
omitted from the patent are known to peerage lawyers. In no case had a
peerage before been claimed by collateral heirs male. "I have often
rallied Brougham," writes Lord Campbell, "upon his creating William
Courtenay earl of Devon. He says he consulted Chief Justice Tenterden.
But Tenterden knew nothing of peerage law." After the death of the exile
in 1835 the clerk of the parliament succeeded him as an earl by force of
the House of Lords decision of the 15th of March 1831. His second son,
the Rev. Henry Hugh Courtenay (1811-1904), succeeded, as 13th earl, a
nephew whose extravagance had impoverished the estates. He in turn was
followed, as 14th earl, by his grandson Charles Pepys Courtenay (b.
1870).
No other recognized branch of this house, once so widely spread in the
western counties, is now among the landed houses of England. Among its
cadets were many famous warriors, but three prelates must be reckoned as
the most eminent of the Courtenays. William, a younger son of the match
of Courtenay and Bohun, was bishop of Hereford in 1370, bishop of London
in 1375 and archbishop of Canterbury in 1381. Proceeding against
Wycliffe he opposed John of Gaunt, who, taunting him with his trust in
his great kinsfolk, threatened to drag him out of St Paul's by his hair,
a threat which roused the angry Londoners in his defence. He died in
1396 and lies buried at the feet of the Black Prince in his cathedral of
Canterbury. By his will he left his best mitre to his nephew Richard
Courtenay--son and pupil, as he styles him--against the time he should
be a bishop. This Richard, a friend of Henry V. when prince, and
treasurer of his household, was bishop of Norwich in 1413. Twice
chancellor of Oxford, he repelled Archbishop Arundel and all his train
when that primate would have had a visitation of the university,
although the claim of the university to independence was at last broken
down. Tall of stature, eloquent and learned, he kept the favour of the
king, who was with him when he died of dysentery in the host before
Harfleur. Heir of this bishop was his nephew Sir Philip of Powderham,
whose younger son Peter Courtenay was the third of the Courtenay
prelates, being bishop of Exeter from 1478 to 1487, when he was
translated to Winchester. Although of the Yorkist Courtenays, he was of
Buckingham's party and, being attainted by Richard III. for joining with
certain of his kinsfolk in an attempt to raise the west, he escaped to
Brittany, whence he returned with the first Tudor sovereign, who had him
in high favour. A fourth prelate of this family was Henry Reginald
Courtenay, who was bishop of Bristol 1794-1797 and bishop of Exeter from
1797 to his death in 1803.
See charter, patent, close, fine and plea rolls, inquests _post
mortem_ and other records. G. E. C.'s _Complete Peerage_; _Dictionary
of National Biography_; _Notes and Queries_, series viii. vol. 7; J.
H. Round's _Peerage Studies_; _Calendars of State Papers_; Machyn's
_Diary_ (Camden Society); Chronicles of Capgrave, Wavrin, Adam of Usk,
&c. (O. BA.)
COURTENAY, RICHARD (d. 1415), English prelate, was a son of Sir Philip
Courtenay of Powderham Castle, near Exeter, and a grandson of Hugh
Courtenay, earl of Devon (d. 1377). He was a nephew of William
Courtenay, archbishop of Canterbury, and a descendant of Edward I.
Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, he entered the church, where his
advance was rapid. He held several prebends, was dean of St Asaph and
then dean of Wells, and became bishop of Norwich in 1413. As chancellor
of the university of Oxford, an office to which he was elected in 1407
and again in 1410, Courtenay asserted the independence of the university
against Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1411; but the
archbishop, supported by Henry IV. and Pope John XXIII, eventually
triumphed. Courtenay was a personal friend of Henry V. both before and
after he came to the throne; and in 1413, immediately after Henry's
accession, he was made treasurer of the royal household. On two
occasions he went on diplomatic errands to France, and he was also
employed by Henry on public business at home. Having accompanied the
king to Harfleur in August 1415, Courtenay was attacked by dysentery and
died on the 15th of September 1415, his body being buried in Westminster
Abbey.
Another member of this family, PETER COURTENAY (d. 1492), a grandnephew
of Richard, also attained high position in the English Church. Educated
at Exeter College, Oxford, Peter became dean of Windsor, then dean of
Exeter; in 1478 bishop of Exeter; and in 1487 bishop of Winchester in
succession to William of Waynflete. With Henry Stafford, duke of
Buckingham, and others he attempted to raise a rebellion against Richard
III. in 1483, and fled to Brittany when this enterprise failed.
Courtenay was restored to his dignities and estates in 1485 by Henry
VII., whom he had accompanied to England, and he died on the 23rd of
September 1492.
See J. H. Wylie, _History of England under Henry IV_. (London,
1884-1898).
COURTENAY, WILLIAM (c. 1342-1396), English prelate, was a younger son of
Hugh Courtenay, earl of Devon (d. 1377), and through his mother
Margaret, daughter of Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford, was a
great-grandson of Edward I. Being a native of the west of England he was
educated at Stapledon Hall, Oxford, and after graduating in law was
chosen chancellor of the university in 1367. Courtenay's ecclesiastical
and political career began about the same time. Having been made
prebendary of Exeter, of Wells and of York, he was consecrated bishop of
Hereford in 1370, was translated to the see of London in 1375, and
became archbishop of Canterbury in 1381, succeeding Simon of Sudbury in
both these latter positions. As a politician the period of his activity
coincides with the years of Edward III.'s dotage, and with practically
the whole of Richard II.'s reign. From the first he ranged himself among
the opponents of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster; he was a firm
upholder of the rights of the English Church, and was always eager to
root out Lollardry. In 1373 he declared in convocation that he would not
contribute to a subsidy until the evils from which the church suffered
were removed; in 1375 he incurred the displeasure of the king by
publishing a papal bull against the Florentines; and in 1377 his decided
action during the quarrel between John of Gaunt and William of Wykeham
ended in a temporary triumph for the bishop. Wycliffe was another cause
of difference between Lancaster and Courtenay. In 1377 the reformer
appeared before Archbishop Sudbury and Courtenay, when an altercation
between the duke and the bishop led to the dispersal of the court, and
during the ensuing riot Lancaster probably owed his safety to the good
offices of his foe. Having meanwhile become archbishop of Canterbury
Courtenay summoned a council, or synod, in London, which condemned the
opinions of Wycliffe; he then attacked the Lollards at Oxford, and urged
the bishops to imprison heretics. He was for a short time chancellor of
England during 1381, and in January 1382 he officiated at the marriage
of Richard II. with Anne of Bohemia, afterwards crowning the queen. In
1382 the archbishop's visitation led to disputes with the bishops of
Exeter and Salisbury, and Courtenay was only partially able to enforce
the payment of a special tax to meet his expenses on this occasion.
During his concluding years the archbishop appears to have upheld the
papal authority in England, although not to the injury of the English
Church. He protested against the confirmation of the statute of
provisors in 1390, and he was successful in slightly modifying the
statute of praemunire in 1393. Disliking the extravagance of Richard II.
he publicly reproved the king, and after an angry scene the royal
threats drove him for a time into Devonshire. In 1386 he was one of the
commissioners appointed to reform the kingdom and the royal household,
and in 1387 he arranged a peace between Richard and his enemies under
Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester. Courtenay died at Maidstone on
the 31st of July 1396, and was buried in Canterbury cathedral.
See W. F. Hook, _Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury_, vol. iv.
(London, 1860-1876); and W. Stubbs, _Constitutional History_, vols.
ii. and iii. (Oxford, 1895-1896).
COURTESY (O. Fr. _curtesie_, later _courtoisie_), manners or behaviour
that suit a court, politeness, due consideration for others. A special
application of the word is in the expression "by courtesy," where
something is granted out of favour and not of right, hence "courtesy"
titles, i.e. those titles of rank which are given by custom to the
eldest sons of dukes, marquesses and earls, usually the second title
held by the father; to the younger sons and to the daughters of dukes
and marquesses, viz. the prefix "lord" and "lady" with the Christian and
surname. For "tenure by the courtesy" see CURTESY. Another form of the
word, "curtsey" or "curtsy," was early confined to the expression of
courtesy or respect by a gesture or bow, now only of the reverence made
by a woman, consisting in a bending of the knees accompanied by a
lowering of the body.
COURTHOPE, WILLIAM JOHN (1842- ), English writer and historian of
poetry, whose father was rector of South Malling, Essex, was born on the
17th of July 1842. From Harrow school he went to New College, Oxford;
took first-classes in classical "moderations" and "greats"; and won the
Newdigate prize for poetry (1864) and the Chancellor's English essay
(1868). He seemed destined for distinction as a poet, his volume of
_Ludibria Lunae_ (1869) being followed in 1870 by the remarkably fine
_Paradise of Birds_. But a certain academic quality of mind seemed to
check his output in verse and divert it into the field of criticism.
Apart from many contributions to the higher journalism, his literary
career is associated mainly with his continuation of the edition of
Pope's works, begun by Whitwell Elwin (1816-1900), which appeared in ten
volumes from 1871-1889; his life of Addison (Men of Letters series,
1882); his _Liberal Movement in English Literature_ (1885); and his
tenure of the professorship of Poetry at Oxford (1895-1901), which
resulted in his elaborate _History of English Poetry_ (the first volume
appearing in 1895), and his _Life in Poetry_ (1901). He deals with the
history of English poetry as a whole, and in its unity as a result of
the national spirit and thought in succeeding ages, and attempts to
bring the great poets into relation with this. In 1887 he was appointed
a civil service commissioner, being first commissioner in 1892, and
being made a C.B. He was made an honorary fellow of his old college at
Oxford in 1896, and was given the honorary degrees of D.Litt. by Durham
in 1895 and of LL.D. by Edinburgh University in 1898.
COURT LEET, an English petty criminal court for the punishment of small
offences. It has been usual to make a distinction between court baron
and court leet[1] as being separate courts, but in the early history of
the court leet no such distinction can be drawn. At a very early time
the lords of manors exercised or claimed certain jurisdictional
franchises. Of these the most important was the "view of frankpledge"
and its attendant police jurisdiction. Some time in the later middle
ages the court baron when exercising these powers gained the name of
_leet_, and, later, of "court leet." The _quo warranto_ proceedings of
Edward I. established a sharp distinction between the court baron,
exercising strictly manorial rights, and the court leet, depending for
its jurisdiction upon royal franchise. The court leet was a court of
record, and its duty was not only to view the pledges but to present by
jury all crimes that might happen within the jurisdiction, and punish
the same. The steward of the court acted as judge, presiding wholly in a
judicial character, the ministerial acts being executed by the bailiff.
The court leet began to decline in the 14th century, being superseded by
the more modern courts of the justices, but in many cases courts leet
were kept up until nearly the middle of the 19th century. Indeed, it
cannot be said that they are now actually extinct, as many still survive
for formal purposes, and by s. 40 of the Sheriffs Act 1887 they are
expressly kept up.