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New Light on Writs and Bills, and on the Influence of Roman Law in England in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

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Extract

All who belong to the small class of persons interested in medieval legal procedure will wish to express their thanks for, and admiration of, the latest contribution made to our knowledge of the subject by the distinguished literary partnership of Mr. H. G. Richardson and Dr. G. O. Sayles. It appears in Volume 60 of the Selden Society publications (dated 1941, but issued last year) entitled, ‘Select Cases of Procedure without Writ under Henry III.’ It is, we are told, an instalment prefatory to another volume which will carry the story beyond the year 1272.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 1944

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References

1 This case is cited on p. liv, from p. 26 of Three Rolls of the King's Court, Pipe Roll Soc. Vol. 14.Google Scholar

2 P. cxlvi.

3 P. cxli.

4 Pp. xiii, xiv.

5 P. Iv.

6 It will be observed that the learned authors here refer to the querela, as ‘the older procedure,’ while in the earlier passage they state that its importance lay in future. There is not necessarily an inconsistency. In legal history the periods of time involved are long, though they are apt not to seem so when we read of them. There is scope in the course of a hundred years for a particular form of procedure to have its ups and ita downs, its waxing and its waning.

7 Pp. cxlvii, cxlviii.

8 Pp. clii, cliii.

9 P. clv.

10 The significance of queritur quod lies not in the words themselves, but in their position as initial words in the record. The classical entry in the record of a ease of trespass by writ contains the words unde queritur at a later stage. Professor Plucknett, in a letter to me, has made the point admirably by the statement that the cases collected in this volume are cases where the record does not refer to an original writ, but begins with the declaration.

11 P. xlv.

12 P. xlv.

13 P. xvi.

14 P. lx.

15 A full discussion would involve an examination of the question what emendation, if any, of the second part of the text would be possible.

16 The earliest statement of this rule is in Glanville (Lib. XII, cc. 2, 25). See Case No. 5 in this volume.

17 Bracton, f. 103; Bracton and Azo, S.S. Vol. 8, pp. 176–176.Google Scholar

18 Bolland announced his discovery in 1912, S.S. Vol. 27, and his views as to the derivation of the word ‘bill’ in S.S. Vol. 30.

19 H.E.L. II, 339.Google Scholar

20 P. lxii.

21 P. cviii.

22 P. 101.

23 33 Y. L. J., 799–816; 34 ibid. 343–370.

24 These words in double inverted commas are quoted from P. & M. II, 558.

25 Plucknett, , Concise History of the Common Law, p. 332.Google Scholar

26 p. cxxxii.

27 P. & M. II, 526.

28 P. cxxxiv.

29 Quoted on p. cix.

30 P. cx. William of Drogheda, the foremost ecclesiastical lawyer of his day, was murdered in his house in Oxford in 1245. P. lvii.

31 Inst. IV, 4, 7, cited p. cxi.

32 P. cxxxii.

33 On p. lix an illustration is given of the fact that at the end of the 12th century the King's judges at the Exchequer might, in another capacity, hear an ecclesiastical cause, apparently without even leaving the Bench. ‘It is to our mind inconceivable,’ write the learned authors, ‘that with this identity of personnel the practice of the common law of England remained unaffected by the procedure of canon law, and therefore of civil law.’

34 P. cxxix.

35 P. xxviii.

38 p. cxxix.

37 Buokland, , Text-Book, p. 724.Google Scholar

38 Bracton, , f. 164b: ‘de beneficio principis succurritur ei per recognitionem ossisae novae disseisinae multis vigiliis excogitalam et inventamGoogle Scholar; quoted P. & M. II, 632, n. 2.

39 M.A. (Oxon), Ph.D. (Mane.), History Tutor of St. Hilda's College, Oxford; sometime Research Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge.

40 Niger studied at the University of Paris, and was a Master of Arts by 1168 at the latest. His master in theology was Gerard la Pucelle, who was also a canonist and described as in utrogue jure peritus. He is known to have been a member of the court of Henry II's son Henry, with whom he may have taken refuge as a supporter of Becket. A paper on Niger's life and literary activity was published in 1940 by Flahiff, Fr. G., in the Mediaeval Studies of the University of Toronto: II, 104126.Google Scholar

The transcript of the chapter is published in the Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies of the Warburg Institute, London, Vol. I, No. 2, pp. 249252Google Scholar. The article on the chapter, entitled An English Theologian's View of Roman Law, is described as ‘by the late Dr. Hermann Kantorowicz and Miss Beryl Smalley.’ It is in two parts. Part I is by Dr. Kantorowicz: it gives an account of the evidence relating to Pepo, whose part in the history of the law school of Bologna is disputed. Niger refers to the civil law as dawning (velut aurora surgente) with Master Pepo, and being diffused by Master Irnerius (propagante magistro Warnerio). For Pepo, Miss Smalley gives me a reference, not cited by Kantorowicz, , to Rashdall, 's Medieval universities, ed. Powicke & Emden I, 111113.Google Scholar

Part II, a short account of Niger's Moralia, and of Chapter XIX in particular, is by Miss Smalley. The editing of the text is by the two scholars jointly.

41 The only known manuscript extant is in the Lincoln Cathedral Library.

42 Miss Smalley informs me that Miss Eleanor Rathbone has collected a mass of evidence on the subject of masters of the civil law and legal studies in England in the 12th century in her unpublished thesis on ‘Cathedral chapters as centres of learning in the 12th century.’ This thesis is deposited in the library of London University. It is very much to be hoped that she will publish it after the war.

43 P. & M. I, 188–189.