In pre-revolutionary
France,
bailiff (, ) was the king's administrative representative during the
ancien régime in northern France, where the bailiff was responsible for the application of justice and control of the administration and local finances in his
bailiwick ('''').
Bailli (12th-century French
bailif, "administrative official, deputy") was derived from a
Vulgar Latin term
*bajulivus meaning "official in charge of a castle", i.e. a royal
castellan.
History In the late 12th and early 13th century,
King Philip II, an able and ingenious administrator who founded the central institutions on which the French monarchy's system of power would be based, prepared the expansion of the royal demesne through his appointment of bailiffs in the king's northern lands (the
domaine royal), based on the medieval fiscal and tax division known as the "" which had been used by earlier sovereign princes such as the
Duke of Normandy. In
Flanders, the count appointed similar bailiffs (). The equivalent agent in the king's southern lands acquired after the inheritance of the
County of Toulouse was the
seneschal. Unlike the local administration of
Norman England through
sheriffs drawn from the great local families, the French bailiff was a paid government official, who had no power network in the area to which he had been assigned, and, in the way of a true
bureaucrat, owed his income and
social status wholly to the central administration that he represented. "He was therefore fanatically loyal to the king," Norman Cantor observes, "and was concerned only with the full exercise of royal power." The
cathedral schools and the
University of Paris provided the clerks and lawyers who served as the king's bailiff.
Magistrates Under the
Ancien Régime in France, the
bailli (earlier
baillis), or bailie, was the king's chief officer in a
bailiwick or bailiery (
bailliage), serving as chief magistrate for
boroughs and
baronies, administrator, military organizer, and financial agent. In southern France the term generally used was
sénéchal who held office in a
sénéchaussée. The bailie convened a bailie court (
cour baillivale) which was an itinerant court of first instance. The administrative network of bailiwicks was established in the 13th century over the Crown lands (the
domaine royal) by
Philip Augustus who commissioned the first bailiff under the name
bailli. They were based on pre-existing tax collection districts (
baillie) which had been in use in formerly sovereign territories, e.g., the
Duchy of Normandy. Bailie courts, as royal courts, were made superior over existent local courts; these lower courts were called: • provost courts (
prévôtés royales), sat by a
provost (
prévôt) appointed and paid by the bailie; •
Norman vicomtés, sat by a viscount (
vicomte) (position could be held by non-nobles); • elsewhere in northern France,
châtellenies, sat by a castellan (position could be held by non-nobles); • or, in the south,
vigueries or
baylies, sat by a
viguier or
bayle. The bailie court was presided over by a lieutenant-bailie (
lieutenant général du bailli). Bailie courts had appellate jurisdiction over lower courts (
manorial courts, provost courts) but was the court of first instance for suits involving the
nobility. Appeal of bailie court judgments lay in turn with the provincial
Parlements. In an effort to reduce the Parlements' caseload, several bailie courts were granted extended powers by
Henry II of France and were thereafter called presidial courts (
baillages présidiaux). Bailie and presidial courts were also the courts of first instance for certain crimes (previously the jurisdiction of manorial courts): sacrilege,
treason, kidnapping, rape, heresy, money defacement, sedition, insurrection, and illegal bearing of weapons. By the late 16th century, the bailie's role had become mostly symbolic, and the lieutenant-bailie was the only one to hear cases. The administrative and financial role of the bailie courts declined in the
early modern period (superseded by the king's
royal tax collectors and provincial
governors, and later by
intendants), and by the end of the 18th century, the bailiwicks, which numbered in the hundreds, had become purely judicial.
Ushers, beadles and tipstaffs In medieval France court bailiffs did not exist as such, but their functions were carried out by several court officers. The
ussier (modern
huissier), or
usher, originally the doorkeeper, kept order in the court. The
somoneor (mod.
semonneur), or court crier, adjourned and called the court to order and announced its orders or directions. The
bedel (mod.
bedeau), or
beadle, was the court's messenger and served process, especially summonses (
sumunse,
somonse, mod.
semonce). And finally the
sergens (mod.
sergent), or
tipstaff, enforced judgments of the court, seized property, and made arrests. The tipstaff's badge of authority was his
verge, or staff, made of ebony, about 30 cm long, decorated with copper or ivory, and mandatory after 1560. The Parlement courts consolidated most of these functions in its tipstaff (
varlet), and the rest of the court system followed suit as the tipstaff was given the broadest powers. During the Renaissance, the four officers were reduced to two—the
huissier and
sergent—who took on all these functions, with the distinction being that the
huissier served in higher courts and
sergent in bailie courts (
sergent royal) and manorial courts (
sergent de justice). In 1705 the two professions were fused by royal edict under the name
huissier. ==Low Countries and German-speaking lands==