What leader would handle a threat in a 17th cent. village?

OK, so I'm working on a fantasy tale, but I'm using 17th century Britain as a template in my head. (Like how The Witcher feels like eastern Europe but never identifies anything in it as corresponding to a real country.)
My MC wanders into what I picture as an Irish village. It has a monster that's gobbled up a few people. Who would offer a reward to slay this monster and who would raise taxes on the local market to pay for it? A village wouldn't have a mayor, from what I can tell. Would the local sheriff be in charge of these activities?
Or since it's fantasy, should I just say screw it, this village has a mayor, deal with it?

 

I'd opt for a rich local land owner with a daughter and seventeen sheep who have been done in by the monster, and who also happens to be head of one of the most important trade guilds in the town.

 

Think GoT and pick a castle on the top of the hill with a nobleman who was awarded land and title for his service to the king. He's pressured by the townsfolk in his fiefdom to do something about it, but he's penny-pinching coward and has to be persuaded to do things, similar to how Rob Stark had to bribe the greasy old miser who ultimately did them in during that brutal massacre scene.

 

It would be the sheriff who investigates.

In 17th century Britain, I believe it was the King who collected taxes. The townspeople could take up a collection to establish a reward.

 

Hmm. I like all these, thanks. Might go with a mix of them all leaning toward realism. The sheriff rode in and put up warning signs, but then left. The good folk pool their coins for a reward, word gets out there's money to be made and that attracts rogues. There's a castle over the hill but for whatever reason, maybe it's abandoned, there's no help there. Fits the general vibe of the location I had going already. A classic "if you want to get anything done you have to do it yourself" situation. Familiar in any time or place.

 

Regarding Catriona Grace's point, it might be complicated in 17th-C Ireland depending exactly when and exactly where
Following extensive confiscations, there was a huge problem of most of the landlords no longer being local
A lot of the land was parceled out to Cromwell's soldiers though, so that might make finding monster-fighters easier, but a lot of people might have preferred the monster

17th-C is also prior to the concept of watchmen or the police. You might have the villagers appointing a constable to follow the Statute of Winchester to avoid them all being collectively responsible. I can see this being a huge headache to research.

Sheriffs and assize courts would be quite new and possibly quite English - apparently the first assizes in Ireland were under James I.
Something to look at would be whether law and order was wrapped up with imperial expediency - were the imposed courts even available to a village in trouble, or was it closer to martial law and did they mostly deal with maintaining control over the Protectorate?
In unfamiliar situations and with the judicial system perhaps being relatively inaccessible and foreign, for a while might the village still think in terms of Ireland's Brehon Laws? (what to do with murderers was an area of marked difference)

Or for something like this might they go to the church? Most villages had one. They were still prosecuting witches in the 17th-C so if there's something supernatural or monstrous...
Or might they just trek over to the nearest town and ask the mayor there?

Another area to look into would be the reward - I'd urge to research this rather than assuming it was legal.

If they thought it was an animal, it might need to be killed by a gamekeeper on the say-so of the landowner (who is probably a rich Norman sod living in France half the year)

Unless it's a wolf...

Wolf hunters were brought into Ireland from Britain , enticed by the large bounties placed on Wolves. A £6 bounty was placed on a female Wolf, £5 for a male and £2 for cubs. Records from those times report ovr 300 Wolf skins were exported from Ireland annually and as the centuries rolled on the number of Wolves roaming Ireland decreased.

The first instance of legislation against Irish wolves dates back to 1584 when John Perrot, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, ordered Robert Legge to come up with a scheme to encourage the destruction of problem wolves. Further records of legislation occur in 1610 and 1611. In 1614, an Englishman named Henric Tuttesham was offered £3 for every wolf that he killed. The wolf population at the time was high enough for Tuttesham to be authorised to keep four men and 24 hounds in every county for seven years, a total of 128 men and 768 hounds.

So there might be people nearby who have (or think they have) a monopoly on this monster.

If they thought it was a person, they might need to arrest them and try them

If they thought it was a werewolf, they might be confused. I did find a French village in 1573 offering a bounty for a werewolf - but that's France and it's difficult to gauge now if things like that were really medieval PR stunts.

 

You got a point there. A fair number of my ancestors blew out of that part of the world under pressure from Cromwell. Hmm. It might be interesting to write a story about a people-eating monster in Ireland as an allegory for Cromwell.

 

Of course, it must be considered than in historical Europe the richest person in the neighbourhood often was a kind of formal government. Substantive landowners had special rights like manorial courts and it was not uncommon for them to also hold local offices like sheriff or justice of the peace. They might well own local infrastructure like communal bread ovens and the mill too.
Failing that, the other most important person in a neighbourhood in historical Europe was the local priest, in your case it would be some sort of parish priest like a rector or vicar. I can certainly imagine the church supporting monster hunting.
You might consider perhaps a local constable? Unlike sheriffs, constables don't appear to have been very high-status people usually, they would probably be from the top half of the town but they might be a bit more down-to-earth and grassroots by comparison. If the idea is that other avenues are failing, perhaps a beleaguered local constable is the only one left to talk to the hero?

 

Yes, and furthermore this a very-un tax related situation. Not only is that a royal prerogative at this time and place, it was also usually required to call parliament for taxes, which was in fact the main thing that set the parliamentary schedule, not a calendar of regular sitting like a modern day legislature. So taxes wouldn't be coming anywhere near this situation.
The equivalent in this situation would be the rents tenants pay to local landowners and the tithes they pay to the church. Those people were the authorities in a situation like this.

 

Hmmm. The church took up a special collection for a reward after they tried an exorcism using the local relic, the holy finger bone of st whatisname. The constable has tried to get ahold of the absentee landlord at the castle around the corner but he's busy crusading somewhere. The money has attracted rogues and wolf hunters, ala Les Pacte des Loups. Maybe our hero is a notorious Libertarian. I mean Libertine.
Beautiful.