SERJEANT, or SERGEANT (Serriens). This term, in its original signification, has long become obsolete. It would however be difficult to trace the connection between the different officers to whom the term Is now applied without going back to their common type.
The term eerviens and servicium appear to have been applied at first to all servants of the public, or of the crown, as the head of the state, and to the service rendered by them as an acknowledgment or reader for the lands held by such service. Rent paid by a tenant to his land lord is still distinguished by the name of rent-service [RENT] from other annual payment§ charged upon land, &c. The word "serjeant " comes to us from aergent," into which tho French had modified the Latin " serviens." The word serjeanty, in French " sergenterie," was formed from "sergent," but was always used with reference to a particular species of service.
The complete development of the feudal system which followed the Norman conquest, was greatly facilitated by those political struggles which terminated in placing large portions of the lands of the kingdom in succession at the disposition of the crown. The forfeited lands of the revolted English were granted by the Conqueror to his followers with few exceptions, subject to the performance of personal services regulated by the quantity of the land granted and the rank and qualification of the grantee. The services ordinarily reserved upon grants by the crown, and upon those made by inferior grantors to their military followers, were of a military character. Where the grant was to hold by the service of a knight's fee, or of two, or half a knight's fee, &c., without expressing the nature of the service to be performed, the party was said to hold by knight's service, per serricium militare [Kirmirr's SERVICE] ; but where some particular service was to be performed by the tenant, or by some duly qualified person pro vided by him,—as, to be an earl or baron of the realm, to lead the king's host, to assist in the defence of a certain castle, to wind a horn upon an invasion, &c.—the tenure was called tenure by serjeanty (per Yerjeantiam), and the grantee became a tenant by serjeanty, and would bo a serjeant (yervie»8). Whilst the two tenures were always dis tinguished by the two appellations of " serjeantia " and " servicium militare," the term " serviens" or "serjeant" was applicable to a tenant beloaging to either class who had not taken upon himself the order of knighthood.
• As the tenant by serjeanty was commonly distinguished by some title derived from the nature of his service—as earl, baron, constable, marshal, treasurer, &c.—the name "aerjeant" was usually applied, not to those who held in serjeanty, but to those who held per serridum rnilatare generally, and had not been knighted. Thus in 1343 the four knights impaneled on a grand assize were told by the judge that they should elect no serjeanty whilst they could find suitable knights (31. 22 Edw. III., fo. 19); and in 1352 the four knights, not being able to elect twelve other knights, were allowed, bi the assent of parties, to elect of the most wealthy serjeanty (11. 26 Edw. III., fo. 57. pl. 12). (These two cases have been strangely misunderstood by Dugdale and others, as if they related to an exemption of serjeants-at law from the burthen of serving upon a grand assize.) So an
ordinance was made in parliament in the reign of Edward III. (1362), by which the return of lawyers to parliament, as knights for counties, was prohibited, on the ground that they acted with a view rather to the benefit of their clients than to that of the public, and the elections were directed to be made of knights and of ecrjeanta of the most value. The term serjeant is also applied to those inferior military tenants, in the grant of a subsidy in 1379, in which serjeanty and franklins of the county are assessed at Gs. 8d., or 3s. 4d., according to their estate, whilst serjeanty at law are assessed at a fixed sum of 40s., being twice the amount of the assessment of barons of the realm. (3 Rot. Parl.; 53.) The aerjeant holding per serricium military, if possessed of sufficient land, was however bound, when called upon, to take upon himself the obligations attendant upon the order of knighthood. The tenant, or expectant tenant of such an estate, who wished to qualify himself for the creditable ,discharge of knightly duties, usually entered upon a course of training in the capacity of esquire to some knight, into whose service. he was induced to enter by considerations arising from family connection, tenure, or friendship, or from the opinion enter tained of his military fame. Although from the time of the Conquest down to the latter end of the reign of Edward III. all military tenants who had not been knighted are designated " serjeanta," we find that after the first years of the reign of Richard II. the term serjeant, as applied to the unknighted tenant by knight's service, disappears, and is succeeded by the " esquire," a term previously used not to designate a class of persona occupying a certain rank, but an office actually per formed. (' Abb. Rot. Origin.; 209, b.) The services of the serjeant of the 14th century, and those of his successor, the esquire of the 15th, were alike estimated as equal to one-half of the service of a knights bachelor, or one-fourth of the service of a knight-bannereL A special service of a military character, to be performed by the tenant or his sufficient deputy, was not leas noble than the ordinary knight's service, and was sometimes called chivalerian serjeanty, but more commonly grand serjeanty. It is said, indeed, by Littleton (a. 153) to be a greater and more worthy service than the other. But any service, military or civil, which was to be performed by the tenant or his deputy to the king himself, was, on account of the dignity of the king's person, accounted a grand or chivalerian serjeanty. Thus, in the Germanic body, the offices of arch-chancellor, arch-treasurer, arch butler, &c., of the empire, attached to particular electorates, were of equal dignity with that of arch-marshal of the empire held by another elector ; and in England, the civil office of lord high treasurer, ite., the military office of lord high constable, &c., and the mixed office of lord high steward, &c., and that of earl or baron by tenure, are, or were, all equally held by grand serjeanty.