SPECIMENS OF JUDICIAL PLEADINGS

The limitations of this section have been explained in the Preface and it is only necessary to mention the provenance and significance of the three documents printed below. Of these the first two are derived from the same source, the Chancery ‘Placita’ which have preserved many interesting relics of judicial procedure in connexion with cases certified into the Chancery by writs of Certiorari. Under these circumstances it seems to have been the rule for a sequence of ‘original’ and ‘judicial’ writs filed in the case, with the official returns and precepts endorsed thereon, to be annexed to the transcript of the Record from the ‘Roll of the term and year,’ and it has been suggested that the Record itself may have been compiled from these memoranda during the earlier mediaeval period. In any case this aspect of the subject is of considerable interest. The several stages of procedure during the ‘Issue term’ and ‘Trial Term’ can be easily distinguished.

In the case of Head v. Butler (No. 1) the action for trespass and assault is originated, not by a Chancery Writ, but by a ‘Bill of Middlesex,’ a form of privileged procedure. In the writ process and official minutes noticed above, the substance of the Pleadings after the Appearance of the parties, and the Medial Judgment upon the Issue joined (iii and xi) can be clearly distinguished; but the proceedings are considerably amplified by the verba Curie introduced in the Record of the Term and Year (xii) and even during the Trial Term the attention of the Court seems to have been chiefly occupied with the necessary formalities for securing the attendance of the Jury and the appearance of the parties (iv—x).