Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 4, Page 51

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Volume 4, Page 51

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[001] let a writ of this kind, which is not called a writ of right, be directed to the sheriff to
[002] justice him, in this form.

The writ of services and customs to the sheriff to justice some one to do the service he acknowledged.

[004] ‘The king to the sheriff, greeting. We order you to justice such a one to do to such a
[005] one, rightfully and without delay, the customs and right services which he ought to do
[006] him from his free tenement which he holds of him in such a vill, as in homages, reliefs,
[007] rents, arrears, and other [services], as he [the demandant] can reasonably show that
[008] he ought to do him. Lest we hear further complaint for default of justice. Witness
[009] etc.’¹ If the tenement is in a borough, let it then be phrased thus: ‘such a one to do such
[010] a one the right services,’ no mention made of customs.

How pleas are transferred from the courts of lords to the county court.

[012] It is clear from what has been said before,² that some writs of right among those
[013] named above³ ought to be determined in the courts⁴ of lords, and that sometimes by
[014] the default of lords, who are unwilling or unable to do right, they are transferred to
[015] the county court and there determined, in many ways, unless the tenant puts himself
[016] on the grand assise, or the lord king on the petition of the demandant (and sometimes
[017] on the petition of the tenant, but for good cause)⁵ wishes the suit to be transferred to
[018] his court from the county. We must therefore begin in order from the courts of lords,
[019] where sometimes the lords themselves, sometimes their bailiffs hold court, as where
[020] the demandant claims to hold by free service of a [lord] who is willing and able to
[021] bring the plea before his court and determine it, by the duel or in some other way. If
[022] he is unwilling or unable to do so, for many reasons, either because of lack of authority
[023] or of some emerging or incidental legal difficulty, so that his court fails to do right to
[024] the demandant, then, the default having been properly proved, let the sheriff do right
[025] because of the default of right in the court of the chief lord, by force of the words contained
[026] in the writ, ‘and if you do not the sheriff shall.’ A court may fail to do right in
[027] many ways, as where the deforciant holds of someone other than him of whom the
[028] demandant claims to hold, because the chief lord then has no power of coercion by
[029] which to bring the deforciant to his court, because of which recourse must of necessity
[030] be had to the county court,⁶ [Also because the chief lord utterly refuses to do
[031] right, or there is no one (or no one may be found) in the court to do right,

Notes

1. Glanvill, ix, 9; supra ii, 240

2. Supra ii, 300

3. Om: ‘quae’

4. ‘curiis’

5. Infra 59

6. Glanvill, xii, 8