marshalsea

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marshalsea in England, a court formerly held before the steward and the knight marshal of the royal household, originally to hear cases between the monarch's servants, but afterwards with wider jurisdiction. It was abolished in 1849.
The Marshalsea was the name of a former prison in Southwark, London, originally the prison of the Court of the Marshalsea, under the control of the knight marshal, and in later years used for the imprisonment of debtors. It was abolished in 1842. The Marshalsea is the setting for a substantial part of Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit (1857), in which the imprisonment of Mr Dorrit lasts for so many years that he becomes known as the Father of the Marshalsea.

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marshalsea

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