Praetorian guard Reference library
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable (19 ed.)
...guard or praetorians Praetor was the title given to a provincial consul who had military powers and the general’s bodyguard was the cohors praetoria . From the time of augustus to that of Constantine, the praetorians were the household guard of the Roman emperors. In due course they acquired a dangerous power of making and unmaking emperors in times of national crisis and they were eventually ( 312 ad ) dispersed among the...
Court Reference library
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable (19 ed.)
...(Old French, from Latin cohors, cohortis , ‘yard’, ‘company of soldiers’) The yard was the central point of a farm and of the buildings that grew up round it. Hence it became the central point of any building or group of buildings, such as a town, a fort and, eventually, a royal palace, with the word at every stage also serving for the people who lived and worked in or round it. Court baron A civil court dealing with matters concerning the duties and services relating to a manor , in which the freeholders were the judges. See also court leet ; ...
