Appeals from these courts could be made to the king and/or his
small council, which was the curia regis and could hear any plea
of the land. In 1234, the justiciar as the principal royal
executive officers and chief presiding officer over the curia
regis ended. In 1268, a chief justiciar was appointed the hold
pleas before the king. Henceforth, a justiciar was a royal officer
who dealt only with judicial work. About the same time the
presiding justice of the court of common pleas also came to be
styled justiciar or chief justice. Justices were no longer
statesmen or politicians, but simply men learned in the law.
Membership in or attendance at the great council or parliament no
longer rested upon feudal tenure, but upon a writ of summons which
was, to a degree, dependent on the royal will.
Crown pleas included issues of the King's property, fines due to
him, murder (a body found with no witnesses to a killing),
homicide (a killing for which there were witnesses), rape,
wounding, mayhem, consorting, larceny, robbery, burglary, arson,
poaching, unjust imprisonment, selling cloth by non-standard
widths, selling wine by non-standard weights. Crown causes were
pled by the king's serjeants or servants at law, who were not
clerics. Apprentices at law learned pleading from them.
Between the proprietary action and the possessory assizes there is
growing use in the king's courts of writs of entry, by which a
tenant may be ordered to give up land, e.
Pages:
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328