Fencing the Court
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	The person presiding on Tynwald Hill, usually the Lieutenant Governor, directs that the Court be fenced. This requires a declaration, in English, by the senior Coroner (the Coroner of Glenfaba) and in Manx, by Yn Lhaihder, “the reader”. In former times all fit persons on the Island were required to attend Tynwald at St Johns. Even with a smaller island population, the area (though larger and more open than now) would have thronged with people not only attending the sitting, but also preparing for the fair and market that would follow. As a mark of respect it is necessary that order and silence prevail. (This was especially important before the days of microphones and loudspeakers.) Thus all assembled are required to stop what they are doing and direct their attention to the Hill; failure to do so in former times led to immediate punishment. The ‘fencing’ applies equally to those in the areas of the fairground and of the front field as to those participating in the Ceremony. In old days the fencing of the Court seems to have been a very important and imposing ceremony, accompanied by the blowing of horns and the ancient equivalent to the beating of the big drum. It was full of spiritual and political significance, and was intended to indicate the power and dignity of the law, consecrating the law circle within which no man was to do violence, yet every man was to be free to speak, to present his petition or make his protest without any pains or penalties.* The term “fence” means in effect to throw a figurative cordon around those assembled without delineating a particular space or area. Since the building of the new chapel in 1849, stone walls have replaced the mounds that bounded the processional way, and the rectangular area that bounded the chapel and hill has been remodelled into a dumbbell shape. This has formalised the setting so that the crowds do not intrude into the proceedings, and has improved the sitting as a spectacle. However, there has, perhaps, been an assumption by those unfamiliar with the proceedings that the ‘fencing’ applies only to those within the dumbbell area. This is not the case. *Debates Vol 22, p999 (Tynwald Court, 7 July 1905)