versus B; in short, the terms perquirere sibi, perquirere se 'Law is the pork, substratum of the fry, Some blunders in mediaeval etymology and grammar should be forgiven if the legal sum and substance of these two thousand cases are rendered with fair correctness. word for Contractions being expanded, my endeavour has been to Ms. printed reproduce what was in the MS. word for word, never altering word. what was there in favour of something which might be better grammar or better sense. Even glaring false concords and obvious clerical errors I have kept in the text suggesting a better reading in a foot-note, when of this there seemed any need. On the very few occasions on which for the reader's convenience an opposite policy has been adopted, express warning of this is given in a foot-note. When a word in the text is printed in italics this means that in the MS. it is indistinct or very doubtful. The first page of the MS. is sadly defaced; in my representation of it the words printed in italics and within brackets, stand for words which are almost illegible. When the first page is past, all goes pretty smoothly. preserved. Again I have tried to preserve the spelling. Conse- Spelling quently, for example, I have never used the diphthong ae but have left the simple e of the original. On the other hand I have not preserved the capricious use of capital letters, for this has no grammatical significance, but is a matter of mere convenience. So both u and v which are very indiscriminately interchanged are here represented by u; it seemed to me that greater fidelity would simply make 1 See the questionable story in Hallam, Hist. Lit. vol. 1, ch. 1, § 75. 2 Dom. Hyacinthus de Archangelis, in Browning, The Ring and the Book, Local names. Punctuation. In unnecessary puzzles; but perhaps in this I was wrong. expanding contractions I have sought to maintain the strain of spelling, but in some respects this varies from clerk to clerk and I may not always have succeeded in catching it. One may easily see, for example, that they usually wrote umquam instead of unquam; but whether they wrote numquam instead of nunquam is more doubtful, for this word is almost always abbreviated. But the most difficult problem is caused by the great similarity between the characters c and t, and the tendency of t in particular combinations to become c. For some clerks, one is inclined to lay down the rule, that whenever in a Latin word t is followed by i and then by another vowel, the t has become c; thus not only does one find as matter of course such forms as aduocacio, inquisicio, conuiccio, contradiccio, but the genitive plural of pars is clearly parcium and the perfect of peto is pecii. But this rule does not hold good for all writers; for example, the annotator of the Note Book seems generally to use t where we should use it. Perhaps in the text here printed the c has been rather too freely used; but sometimes it is almost impossible to say whether a clerk has written peciit or petiit. Again the terminations of the names of places are so commonly abbreviated, (e.g. Ditton', Trumpinton', Hatfeld', Hatfeud', Winterburn', Watford', Wokindon') that often it is hard to decide whether what is omitted is a latinized termination, or a final indeclinable e. I doubt whether any universal rule could be laid down. Many of the larger towns certainly had declinable names, e.g. events take place apud Gloucestriam or apud Gloverniam; on the other hand it seems to me that some names were treated as indeclinable, e.g. those ending in ham; but about many of them I am doubtful and the reader should know of this doubt. As regards punctuation. Both the Note Book and the Rolls are punctuated; the dread of stops had not yet taken possession of lawyers; and the Note Book is often very stupidly punctuated, for the copyists did not care to understand what they wrote. For a while I thought that fidelity obliged me to reproduce their vagaries and I did not grow wiser until some sheets were beyond my control. After this I placed a few commas and full stops where I thought that they would be useful and called attention in foot-notes. to any departure from the original which seemed of any importance. In general a legal record is quite unambiguous when all stops are omitted, and punctuation should be treated as of no authoritative value whatever. notes. The notes found in the margin of the MS. are printed in Marginal the margin of this book. It should be understood that all matters in the margin, except the 'marginal venues', were written by him whom I have called 'the usual annotator', unless something to the contrary is said in a footnote. Plea Rolls. When this was possible I have collated my transcript Collation of of the Note Book with the rolls. What rolls are extant the reader may discover from a table at the end of this introduction. To indicate rolls which have been scored', and which therefore, as I infer, were used by the maker of the Note Book, I have employed the letter A : other rolls are referred to as B and C. A foot-note to the beginning of a case refers to the membrane of the roll on which it is found. The object of the collation was merely to discover whether the cases were on the rolls, whether they were copied with substantial accuracy, whether the roll would explain what the Note Book left unexplained. This is an edition of the Note Book not of the rolls; therefore I have not as a rule supplied what the maker of the Note Book systematically omitted, e.g. the names of unimportant persons, nor have I thought it expedient to notice variances except when these were of real legal importance. He was a lawyer and his book, whatever interest it may have for others, must in the main be a book for lawyers. Notable cases. Cases of historic im portance. § 10. Of some noteworthy cases in the Note Book. By a few last paragraphs attention may be begged for some of the matters in the Note Book which seem the most noteworthy. The record which shows how the outlawry of Hubert de Burgh and of the barons who took his part was reversed', may be welcome even to those who are not lawyers; and there are some other records which illustrate the struggle of 1233. A statement by the king's court in 1237 that Gualo the papal legate had been 'quasi tutor domini regis et custos regni' deserves remark3. There is a similar statement that Hubert de Burgh 'habuit regnum Angliae in manu sua”. The latter occurs in a case touching the feudal relations between the king of Scotland and the king of England, a case which contains an emphatic statement of the doctrine of prerogative wardship. Four valuable entries concern the partition and therefore destruction of the most formidable outcome of English feudalism, the palatinate of Chester; the difficulty of making a palatine earl answer out of his own palatinate, the ascription of palatine rights to the Earl Marshall, the demand for a judicium parium, the doubts of the assembled magnates over this unprecedented case, the rejection of foreign, presumably French, precedents, the reference to Roman or Canon law as a possible supplement for English jurisprudence, the afforcement of the court, the elaborately reasoned judgment, will not go unheeded; clearly these were important suits. One of these entries and another record here printed are Coke's oldest authorities, (he had them from Fitzherbert,) for the law as to the abeyance of titles of honour'. There is a claim by William Longsword to the earldom of Salisbury, or perhaps to a 1 Case 857. 2 Cases 741, 750, 770, 1108, 1111, 1113, 1124, 1136, 1141. 3 Case 1219: compare Stubbs, Const. Hist. vol. 2, p. 31, note 1. 4 Case 1221. 5 Cases 1127, 1213, 1227, 1273. 6 Case 12. 7 Co. Lit. 165 a. hereditary shrievalty of Wiltshire', and there are several cases which turn on the doings of Henry Fitz Count who had asserted a right to the county of Cornwall and issued writs in his own name. Traces of that great disseisor Fawkes of Breauté, are not far to seek; William Marshall the younger offers a thousand marks for the privilege of fighting him3. The court suspends its sittings in order that William of Albemarle may be besieged and suppressed'. Law has to recognize that a tempus guerrae is not uncommon. history. That a large mass of material for the history of many Family famous families is here printed for the first time, will perhaps in the eyes of some be the best point of this book. Title is often pleaded from the days of Henry the First, and the Norman Conquest is still the period of prescription. tional Law. Some of the pleas which followed the king are of special constituinterest as showing the action of the royal court where royal rights are concerned. Whether the king can be compelled to warrant his gifts seems a moot point, or rather a political question of grave moment". It seems probable that he does justice in person and decides debated problems. If the second husband is tenant by the curtesy, it is because the king does not wish to change the ancient custom of England, though Segrave held that this custom was unreasonable'. If the king's rights are concerned, his pleasure must be taken; he has no superior, he cannot be summoned, none may give him orders; therefore no action will lie against him. His council, which is now becoming a definite body, supervises the administration of the law. Justices in eyre are summoned before the king's council and the justices of the bench, and are amerced for having hanged a man unlawfully'; the justices of the bench themselves have to come before the council and answer for their mistakes of law; they plead that they knew no better. The open sale of justice is becoming a thing |