A bailiff is a manager, overseer or custodian – a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. Bailiffs are of various kinds and their offices and duties vary greatly.

In Anglo-Saxon England, the reeve was a senior official with local responsibilities under the Crown, such as the chief magistrate of a town or district. After the Norman Conquest, it was an office held by a man of lower rank, appointed as manager of a manor and overseer of the peasants. In this later role, historian H. R. Loyn observes, "he is the earliest English specialist in estate management."