Sheriff of Nestletop
This week we are going to continue with our slow building
of the town of Nestletop. We’ve taken a look at one of the five founding
families, the blacksmith, the tradepost, and the local tavern. Today I want to
explore the role of law and order within the community. We’re going to look
into how law worked in a medieval village and who represents the law in our
small town.
The person who oversaw keeping the king’s peace in the
time of the Normans was called a sheriff, a term we use to this day. But this
came from an official position of the Saxons called a reeve, which was a senior
official with local responsibilities under the crown. The reeve could be just
about an official under the crown but was often a town or district magistrate.
After the Norman conquest a reeve was appointed to every shire, and thus it was
a “shire reeve”, which eventually got turned into sheriff.
During the reign of the Saxons, reeves were higher level
court officials. When the Normans took to appointing their shire reeves they
generally choose men from non-noble stock because they didn’t want to create an
official with so much power they would become unaccountable to the king. They
did, however, have to balance this by appointing men with sufficient standing
as to allow them authority over local landed and military aristocracy.
While the shire reeves could have authority over a few
counties, the Normans used lesser reeves which they called bailiffs for the
feudal manor. Basically, while the sheriff oversaw the county’s needs, the bailiff
had the equivalent role for feudal landlords. The sheriff would take care of
administrative as well as judicial functions, and on the manorial level bailiff
would make decisions that could concern mundane field management and not just
legal disputes.
But where does that leave us with our town? How can we
apply this knowledge to Nestletop?
First, we have to take into account that, although
Nestletop may be an official part of the large Theocratic nation – which I
haven’t really outlined at all yet – they are so far away from any part of that
civilization as to be pretty much independent. The town also doesn’t really
have nobility. The founding families were rich but they were not actually noble
houses. At best they are non-noble aristocracy, but for all intents and
purposes the rulers of the town.
Even though Nestletop is small it does have laws as
created by the town’s council. These laws in some way need to be enforced and
so – in my mind at least – Nestletop needs a law man, or in this case a law woman.
The position shall be elected by the council which has representatives of the
five noble families, the townsfolk themselves -- in this case the blacksmith
AbletonRedrun -- and a representative from the elvish community as well. It is
the belief that since no one person, and not just the founding families choose
the sheriff that she will be beholden to the law and not just to a single
group. Sheriff is a lifetime appointment in Nestletop, or until the current
sheriff seeks to retire.
Sheriff’s Office/Jail
The Sheriff’s office is situated on the same side of
Nestletop’s dirt road as the Cracked Anvil tavern. It is the only two story
building on the street as the top floor is actually the apartment in which the
sheriff lives. The bottom floor is made up of one large room that houses both
the actual office of the lawwoman and the two small jail cells against the back
wall.
Being as small as it is Nestletop doesn’t see a lot of
crime, and the cells themselves are usually empty. Occasionally a rough night
of drinking will see one of the cells occupied by one of the townsfolk who
needs to sleep it off. Sometimes if things come to blows between folk they’ll
need to be separated, hence the reason for two cells even if they’re rarely
both in use.
The main office is little more than an open space with a
desk and a few chairs. There is a bench along one wall with iron rings bolted
into the sturdy wooden walls to attach manacles. A large locked chest contains
a few sets of leather armor and some weapons – mainly short swords and light
crossbows – on the incredibly infrequent occasion the sheriff needs to deputize
some folks.
Katryn Windthistle
When the position of sheriff was created as a life time
appointment most folks expected it to be a human lifetime. The elves keep
mainly to themselves as long as the townsfolk to break any of their taboos.
Katryn Windthistle is one of only a handful of half-elves born to the
intermarriage between the local tribe of elves and the people of Nestletop.
Most half-elves prefer to spend their lives with their elven side of the family
but Katryn has always felt more comfortable with the human side.
Katryn’s father was a well-respected foreman in the mines
of the Merrick family, Her mother found the human village far more interesting
than the forest in which she was raised. She fell in love and even married the
human man living with him on the Urduth estate. Idrin, Katryn’s father, was not
a young man and died of old age before his daughter even reached what
constitutes adulthood for a half-elf. Katryn’s mother elected to return to her
people but the young half-elf stayed in town with her father’s kin.
Katryn was never the miner her father was and did odd
jobs around the various estates and even for the dwarven couple who ran the
tavern and the owner of the tradepost. When the dust-up from the arrival of the
smith AbletonRedrun happened she help talk down the Urduths, who were quite
unhappy at the time. In her many years she had become friendly with the young
members of all the households who were now coming of age and taking over for
their parents.
When the old sheriff retired and a new one needed to be
elected Katryn’s name was at the top of the list. Well-liked by all, the
then-current heads of the families as well as the general populace, she was an
obvious choice. The elves thought she would make an excellent liaison between
their tribe and the humans, especially since the last sheriff always seemed to
side with townsfolk in matters of law.
Katryn’s time as sheriff has so far had little in the way
of incident, which is more a testament to her good nature and even hand than a
lack of possible trouble. She takes it as a matter of pride that she’s never
had to deputize any of the townsfolk for any reason. Beyond her duties as
enforcer of the law, she also trains the militiamen that guard the pass in case
of wandering monster or barbarian attack from the Great Plains the people of
Nestletop once traversed.
Who in your town defends law and order? Do the local
nobles deal with their own legal issues? Or do they hire a bailiff to oversee
them? Is your town part of a larger county or shire where a true sheriff
presides over matters of law? Or is your town like mine, small and out of the way with its own system
of laws outside the greater nation, with its own sheriff to deal with
infrequent infractions of jurisprudence?
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