MRP: Legal Glossary

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C17th legal glossary

This page is at an early stage of development. It is a research tool and not a finished product


Overview

This page provides a legal glossary to Chancery and other commercial oriented legal processes in the mid seventeenth century. Links are provided to contemporary secondary sources held externally and readable in E-Book form, as well as to primary documents held on this wiki




Suggested links


The Inner Temple archive service provides an - Inner Temple legal glossary

An independent online open law Law Wiki provides guidance on modern terminology and fields of law. See - Law Wiki


To do


(1) Add links to internal wiki primary documents

(2) Expand glossary


Annuity

Variant: Annuitie
Example:


Answer

Example:


Assignment of lease


Example: C2/CHASI/B11/22 f. 1. James Hill assigned two leases on various lands in the parish of Halling to John Haggett after falling into financial difficulty. Hill subsequently assigned the leases to Sir Maximilian Dallison, who had leased the lands to Hills in the first place. After Hill's suicide by drowning in the river Medway the Bishop of Bath and Wells (the former Bishop of Rochester) attempted to claim the leases, goods and chattels of Haggett on the legal basis of "self-felony"


Attornement


Definition: "Attornment (from Fr. tourner, "to turn"), in English real property law, is the acknowledgment of a new lord by the tenant on the alienation of land. Under the feudal system, the relations of landlord and tenant were to a certain extent reciprocal. So it was considered unreasonable to the tenant to subject him to a new lord without his own approval, and it thus came about that alienation could not take place without the consent of the tenant. Attornment was also extended to all cases of lessees for life or for years. The necessity for attornment was abolished by an act of 1705" (Wikipedia; 'attornment')


Bayle


Example: "I went to Councell & soe to Yeld hall where I caused Bayle both for y:e 15000:ll & your goods which were nallowed [?] at 3600:ll ... 25th September 1662, Letter from Elizabeth Dalyson to Sir GO


Bill of complaint


Example: "Humbly complayning showing unto yo:r Lordship"


Breach of promise


Example: Allegation by Judith May that Maximilian Dallison was in breach of his promise to marry her by subsequently marrying Elizabeth Oxenden (SP 16/266/79; SP 16/266/80)

There is a useful early C19th exegesis of an action for breach of promise in - S.B. Harrison & Frederic Edwards, A practical abridgement of the law of nisi prius: together with the general principles of law applicable to the civil relation of persons, and the subject-matters of legal contention, vol. 2 (London, 1838), pp. 959-961

There is a late C19th book addressing the potential abolition of the action for breach of promise in the context of significant change in the 1870s to marital law. See MacColla, Charles J., Breach of promise: its history and social considerations, to which are added a few pages on the law of breach of promise and a glance at many amusing cases since the reign of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1879)


Charge


Variants: Chardge; Allowable charge

Example: "had power to charge or dispose of ye said Lease"; "ye charges of renewing of ye said Lease satisffyed "; "uncharged"

A substantial body of law relates to the practice of charging and encumbering land with certain obligations. Charges and encumberances may be revealed by inspection of title deeds. However, other liabilities can be imposed on or 'attached to' land which are not visible in the deeds. Possible liabilities include annuities, rentcharges, deeds of arrangement, Court orders of differing types, statutory charges, pending actions, and easements.
- See 41 L. Q. Rev. 176 (1925) Land Charges Acts in Jurisprudence; Wallace, J. S. Stewart


Confederation


Variant: Confederacon

Example:


Consideration


Variants: Consideracion


Counterpart


Example: "of w:ch Articles of Agreem:t thesaid S:r Henrie Oxinden could not ignorant as this def:t beleiveth he the said S:r Henrie Oxinden being an Executor & the sole Actor concerning this def:ts mothers estate & as this def:t beleiveth hath the Counterpart of the said Articles now in his custodie"
(C 9/40/58 f. 5, Oxenden v. Dallison 1668)


Court of Arches


The Court of Arches was the apellate court of the archbishop of Canterbury as metropolitan of the province of Canterbury. Its geographical remit covered England south of the Humber and all of Wales. It was the leading ecclesiastical court in the "medieval" period.

F. Donald Logan (ed.), The Medieval Court of Arches (London, 2007)

Lambeth Palace Library: Court of Arches archival material


Court of Chancery


Example:

The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales, which applied loose rules of 'equity' to provide an alternative to the possible 'inequity' of the common law. The jurisdiction of the court included trusts, land law, the administration of the estate of lunatics, and the guardianship of infants.

The litigation between the Oxenden and Dallison family following the death of Elizabeth Dallison was primarily about an alleged trust or trusts held by various members of the Oxenden family and their representatives, hence it was pursued in the Court of Chancery.

See wikipedia entry on - Court of Chancery


Court of Common Pleas


Example: "according to advise remooved y:e sute up into y:e Common pleas" 25th September 1662, Letter from Elizabeth Dalyson to Sir GO

Created in the late C12th/early C13th, the Court of Common Pleas sat in Westminster Hall, as did the Court of King's Bench and the Exchequer of Pleas. The jurisdiction of the Court of Common pleas was over "common pleas", that is actions between subject and subject and not involving the King. The Court of Common Pleas had exclusive jurisdiction over real property. It was headed by a Chief Justice and a number of puisne justices, who were serjeants-at-law. Serjeants at law and King's serjeants had right of audience before the court, which was not open to every barrister. The court ceased to exist in 1873, when it was merged with the Court of King's Bench and the Exchequer of Pleas.

Considerable competition developed between the Court of Common Pleas and other courts such as the Court of King's Bench and the Chancery over jurisdiction, with the latter two being perceived as cheaper and faster through innovations by their chief justices in legal process and legal concepts. Conflict continued in the 1660s at the time of the Oxenden vs Love et al litigation in Chancery (with a brief diversion via the Court of Pleas).

See Wikipedia entry on - the English Court of Common Pleas


Court of the Exchequer


The Chancellor of the Exchequer sat with the Barons of the Exchequer on the equity side.

Sir Walter Mildmay was an influential Chancellor of the Exchequer under Elizabeth. After 1579 all barons of the exchequer as well as the chief baron were appointed from the serjeants-at-law (Bryson in Guth & Mckenna (XXXX:151). The exchequer court expanded its jurisdiction significantly from the 1570s onwards. The court of exchequer acquired in 1554 the financial functions of the court of augmentations and the court of first fruits and tenths. After 1546 only the court of wards and liveries continued to handle Crown revenues other than the court of exchequer. The lord treasurer's importance within the Crown's administration was simultaneously enhanced.

See Mathew Hale, The Compleat Sollicitor (London, 1666)

See William Booth, The compleat solicitor, entring-clerk and attorney [microform] : fully instructed in the practice, methods and clerkship of all His Majesties courts of equity and common-law superiour and inferiour, as well those at Westminster and in the city of London, as elsewhere throughout the kingdom of England : a collection more correct, uniform, and universally advantagious than any treatise heretofore extant in this kind (London, 1883)


Court of the King's bench


Example:

- Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), of the Inner Temple, was Chief Justice of the King's Bench (1613-1616), having previously been the Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas

See above entry on Court of Common Pleas


Court of Requests


Example: "For the benefit of Trade and Act was obtained in 1781 to establish a court or requests, for the more easy and speedy recovery of small debts under the value of forty shillings, within the city of Rochester, and the several parishes of Strood, Frindsbury, Cobham, Shorne, Higham, Cliffe, Cooling, High-Halstow, Chalk, Hoo, Burham, Wouldham, Halling, Coxstone, Chatham, Gillingham, and the Ville of Sheerness in the county of Kent."
- (Sammuel Denne, with W. Shrubsole, History and antiquities of Rochester and its environs (Rochester, 1815), p. 315)


Court of Wards and Requests


Example: WARD 7/99/92 Dallyson, William: Kent 20 Chas I. This document is a record from the Court of Wards and Liveries and is an Inquisitions Post Mortem. It appears to relate to the death of Elizabeth Dallison's husband, William. The 20th year of the reign of Charles I was the year 1644


Deed of release


Example:


Devise


Example: "the Bishop of Rochester devised to the said Robert Raworth ye said Bishops place & premisses for ye lives of yo:r orators mother your orator & his son"; "joyntly and severally devise, grant, bargayne, sell, alyen, enfeofe and confirm unto"


Dispose


Example:


Equity


Example: "Said Mother had the legall Interest of & in the said lands & p:rmisses, or otherwise that shee had some equitable power to charge the said Lands by her said will"


Estate


Example: "temporal estate"

See wikipedia entry on - estates in land. This entry categorises different types of estate: freehold, leasehold, statutory, and equitable

For further background information see wikipedia entry on - trusts and estates


Exchequer of Pleas


Example:

The Exchequer of Pleas was headed by the Chief Baron of Exchequer. The chief baron sat with three puisne barons to hear suits in the court of equity and settled revenue disputes.

Sir Christopher Turnor, the father-in-law of James Master, Sir George Oxenden's nephew and one of Sir George's legal advisors, was a Baron of the Exchequer. That is, he was a 'baron' or judge of the English Exchequer of Pleas. He was appointed serjeant at law and third baron in 1660. James Master married his daughter, Joyce, in 1667.

Chief Barons of the Exchequer at the time of the Oxenden litigation with Love et al and separately with Dallison and Stanley were Sir Orlando Bridgman and Sir Mathew Hale. However, the Exchequer of Pleas was not a court with jurisdiction over the issues in these suits. Bridgman was made Chief Baron of the Exchequer in 1660, shortly before being made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas (1660-1666), and then subsequently was appointed Lord Keeper of the Great Seal (1667-1672). Hale was made Chief Baron of the Exchequer in 1660, immediately after Bridgman. Hale had acted as a barrister for royalists, but was made a Justice of the Common Please by Cromwell. In 1671 he was appointed Chief Justice of the King's Bench.

See 'Memoirs of Sir Christopher Turnor,' in The biographical mirrour (London, 1795)

See wikipedia entry on - Sir Christopher Turnor
See wikipedia entry on - Sir Orlando Bridgman
See wikipedia entry on - Sir Edward Hale


Indenture


Example: "indentures tripartite"


Interrogatory


Example: Cane v. Stanley, 1653. Thirteen interrogatories C 22/968/8 f. 1 and twenty related depositions C 22/968/8 f. 2 in the case of William Cane, gent. against Thomas Stanley and Barnabas Walsall. Walsall has defaulted on a due debt and Cane seeks to discover the true ownership of Walsall and Stanley's assets, which appear to have been intermixed with alleged intent to deceive the complainant

The National Archives classification C 22/ contains Chancery interrogatories and sometimes the associated depositions taken locally


Jointure


Variants: Joynture
Example:


Lease


Example:


Personal property


Example:

See wikipedia entry on - personal property


Portion


Variants: Porcion; Marriage portion

Example: "Said Mother demanded to have paid her one Thousand pounds for the portions of her two Daughters"


Power to dispose


Example:


Real property


Example:

See wikipedia entry on - real property


Reversion


Example: "Granted the reversion of the same lands "


Trust


Variant: Trusts

Example: “the Trusts hereby lymmitted to the said Maximilian Dallison Mary Dallison and Margaret Dallison should cease”; "did acknowledge as the Trust was & is that shee had not legall Title or Interest in the said lands"

For background information see wikipedia entry on - 'wills and trusts'

For further background information see wikipedia entry on - trusts and estates


Types of legal document


Admissions to a Manor
Appointment of attorney to deliver seisin of premises
Bargain and sale
Bond
Bond for payment of X
Commission of gaol delivery
Deed declaring the uses of a fine
Deed of assignment (C2/CHASI/B11/22)
Deed of covenant
Deed of revocation
Deed to suffer recovery
Demise
Exemplification of a recovery
Exemplification of a suit in the Court of Common Pleas
Exemplification under the seal of the Common Pleas of a fine
Exemplification under the seal of the Common Pleas of a recovery
Exemplify
Feoffment
Grant
Grant of the administration of goods
Indenture declaring the uses of a fine between X and Y
Indenture of assignment
Indenture of bargain and sale
Indenture of grant (being a marriage settlement)
Indenture of lease
Indenture of release
Letter of attorney
Letters Patent of pardon (of trespass)
Licence of alienation
Marriage settlement
Mortgage
Presentment of a theft
Release for alienation without licence
Release (of lands)
Subpoena
Quitclaim
Writ
Writ of entry sur disseisin


Writ of condemnation


Example: "all yoar goodes in Bretons house & in his handes & your five hundred pounds in y:e East India Comp:a was attached [could be “attacked”] by Breton, Nowell, Pearse and a writt of condemnation ready to pass" 25th September 1662, Letter from Elizabeth Dalyson to Sir GO


Writ of error


Example:


Writ of subpoena


Example: "his mat:ies most gratious writt or writts of Subpoena"


Year book


Example:

"Year books" collected reports on important legal cases. They provided lawyers with a written record from which to stay abreast of legal decision making.

Statham's Abridgement, published in the C15th, provides a view of the volume of past decided cases by this period.


Terms for possible inclusion


Act (actings and proceedings)
Action
Administrator
Bargain & sale (bargained and sold; contract of bargain and sale)
Beneficiary
Canon/Civil law

  • Used in church courts and courts of Admiralty

Colour
Commissary court
Common law

  • Common law not taught at universities until 1828

Common reason (dissonant to common reason)
Consistory court
Converted (converted to own use)
Conveyance
Counterpart
Coverture
Deforciant
Dowry
To stand with equitie and good conscience
Escheated (lands forfeited) for felony
Episcopal court
Hereditaments
Felon of himself (felo de se)
Interest (interest in land; Said Mother had the legall Interest of & in the said lands & p:rmisses)
Joint tenants
Life (lease for three lives)
Possessed (possessed and interested of and in)
Premises (lands and premisses)
Primogeniture
Quiet possession
Recital (as by the said recital)
Released (estate settled and released)
Rent (rent and profits; Rents issues & proffits)
Residue (of a term of a lease)
Surrender (an interest, a lease)
Tenants in common
Tenements
Unnatural
Value (yearly value; rent at a year)Warranted, to warrant
Writ of certiorari

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