Bailiff

A bailiff (from Middle English baillif, Old French baillis, bail "custody, charge, office"; cf. bail, based on the adjectival form, baiulivus, of Latin bajulus, carrier, manager) is a manager, overseer or custodian; a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. Bailiffs are of various kinds and their offices and duties vary greatly.

Another official sometimes referred to as a bailiff was the vogt: see Vogt and Vogt (Switzerland). In the Holy Roman Empire a similar function was performed by the Amtmann.

Name

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.

British Isles

Historic bailiffs

Bailiff was the term used by the Normans for what the Saxons had called a reeve: the officer responsible for executing the decisions of a court. The duty of the bailiff would thus include serving summonses and orders, and executing all warrants issued out of the corresponding court. The district within which the bailiff operated was called his bailiwick, even to the present day. Bailiffs were outsiders and free men, that is, they were not usually from the bailiwick they were responsible for.

Bailiff (France)

A bailiff (French: bailli, French pronunciation: ​[baji]) 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 (baillage).

Name

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 medieval fiscal and tax divisions (the "baillie") which had been used by earlier sovereign princes such as the Duke of Normandy. In Flanders, the count appointed similar bailiffs (Dutch: baljuw). The equivalent agent in the king's southern lands acquired after the inheritance of the County of Toulouse was the seneschal.

Bailiff (knightly orders)

A bailiff (French: bailli, French pronunciation: ​[baji]) was a high official in the Knights Hospitaller who directed one of its bailiwicks abroad or one of the national associations ("tongues") at its headquarters.

History

Bailiff was the rank and title of the head of each of the bailiwicks of the Knights Hospitaller and also of the head, at Rhodes and Malta, of one of the seven, later eight, Langues (or tongues) into which the members of the Knights Hospitaller were grouped once the Order was established on Rhodes and subsequently on Malta. The langues were Auvergne, Spain (later split into Castile-Portugal and Aragon), England, France, Germany, Italy, and Provence.

Despite the seeming link to language, this organization was not strictly aligned with linguistic boundaries, but tended to combine the Order's knights and possessions in several nations or states; the German tongue, for instance, included Scandinavia, Hungary, Poland and Bohemia. Each tongue covered at least one Grand Priory. The Grand Prior and the Chapter, which comprised representatives of all bailiwicks and commandries, administered the individual tongues—including the Order's possessions, its charitable activities (hospitals etc.), parishes incorporated into the Order, and the financial contributions for the defense of Rhodes and later Malta and for the maintenance of the Order's naval forces in the Mediterranean.