Sheriffs and shires

Except on the rare occasions when the king or his judges came to a shire, the sheriff and his officials were the only representatives of Henry's government. The sheriff wast the 'shire-reeve', the person responsible for supervising the king's estates in the shire and collecting the income from them to pay into the Exchequer as a sum called the sheriff's 'farm'. The amount for each shire was fixed at the beginning of Henry's reign.

The sheriff also presided over the shire or county court where he dispensed justice and carried out administrative tasks, supervised the keeping of the peace through the lesser courts of the districts, called hundreds or wapentakes, and was responsible for delivering writs summoning litigants to appear in the royal courts. In times of war he was expected to maintain military control of the shire for the king. In many shires his activities centered on a royal castle in the county town.

Sheriffs must have struck awe into the hearts of local men and many exploited the power their position gave them for their own financial gain. As a result, in 1170, Henry held inquiries into their conduct and dismissed most of them. From then on, sheriffs were usually professional administrators rather than local barons. However, although the Exchequer could control them financially, the problem of controlling their local political activities remained to trouble later kings.