Hello!

I have a doubt about the following name: "piepowder court".



I see in the Wiktionary that the French "piepoudre" is another way of writing it. I know it refers to special tribunals of medieval England hold to judge frauds in town-markets.



In my search for a Spanish translation to this it came to my mind the expression "pies en polvorosa", which means "to run away at top speed", so quickly in fact that your heels (or horse shoes) will raise the dust of the road.



Unfortunately "pie" in this English expression and "pie" in Spanish have the same spelling, which could make you think I am induced to error by this similarity. To be honest, this is not what makes me looking for a certainty here, but rather the alleged etymology Wiktionary asigns to "piepoudre":
Literally "dusty foot", referring to the travelling dealers, from French pied (“foot”) + poudreux (“dusty”).



Would you think it correct to say that a "piepowder court" was in fact the one convened to avoid fraudulent dealers to run and leave nothing but a column of dust behind? —that will allow my tentative rendering of this as "tribunales de pies en polvorosa".



Thanks a lot for your great help and info.



All the best to all.



CM

The "dusty foot" bit related to those not resident in a market town who arrived in numbers, typically on foot, during the convening of the market. Where disputes arose over trade deals gone awry, or incidents of drunkenness or violence merited it, locals were empowered under law to set up a temporary tribunal with all the powers of what is now called a "district court" to quickly try such cases. Where these differed from magisterial or other crown courts in terms of procedure was that the accused didn't have to proffer a home address - it was deemed irrelevant - and also the verdict was determined by a panel of "judges", typically comprising the town's more eminent non-commercial notables, such as the schoolteacher, manor estate employees, the parson or vicar in post-reformation times, and similar. Innkeepers, monks and farmers were not preferred as judges, and where post-verdict appeals were made and succeeded it was very often on the grounds that the court contained one or more of these people whose neutrality might be questionable.

Verdicts and fines delivered by piepowder courts could be appealed, but only at the next "session", which would typically be the next time the market was held. This was an effective way of distinguishing between the true "piepowders" and those of more reputable standing who might have fallen foul of the previous court. The former were less likely to turn up and risk losing such an appeal, which normally meant a doubling of the original fine.

In towns or villages where the local dignitaries ran an effective magisterial court there was normally no need to appoint a piepowder court. True "dusty foots" were therefore wise to avoid such venues if they planned to get up to no good - these courts could impose larger fines without grounds for appeal, custodial sentences if required, and even death sentences.

So the short answer is that they were courts trying people who arrived with dusty feet, not necessarily those planning to do a runner. I'm not familiar with Spanish legal history, but any ad-hoc tribunal set up during market times or festivals etc, if they existed at all, would be the closest parallel.

Hi nordmann! Glad to hear from you.
By "people arriving with dusty feet" I tend to understand "foreigners", or at least non-residents of the town. Is that right? Would it be a court specific for them? I could then try some approach in Spanish. Otherwise, all my search give nothing in this domain.

Thanks a lot anyway. I will content myself with a periphrasis and the indication of the original term in English, so that the specialist may see it for him/herself.

Take care,

CM

Sorry; you had already answered to this question in the very first line of your explanation. I read it in full, but it seems that my brain had forgot it at the end.

No prob.

Actually the question of residency was important. A local might prefer to opt to be tried by the piepowder court as the penalties were normally less - since many "piepowders" often had no money to pay monetary fines such sentences tended to include enforced labour for a day or two to pay a debt, a short stint in the stocks, or some swift corporal punishment. However by the 17th century this option had all but disappeared as common law (within which these tribunals operated) had been largely stripped of the ability to impose sentences of any description, especially fines.

The last remaining common law tribunals in the UK which can still impose fines are to be found in probably only a handful of locations in England where shared tillage of common land survived the great enclosures and is still practised. These tribunals adjudicate where someone has worked beyond their allotted strip and they can impose small fines on these transgressors. None of this money goes to the crown (it probably just about buys a round of pints in the pub in which the tribunal is sitting). However these small tribunals of peers are very much what piepowder courts would also have looked like when they were in full swing.

I see. Anyway, I guess these are  idiosyncratic. I don't think it possible to find the Spanish equivalence, if there's one. The explanation will have to suffice.