although an original writ was not current out of the realm, a royal mandate 
was nevertheless effective if King's business was involved. 53 This amounted 
to no more than a generalized assertion of prerogative, but within a few 
decades the matter was more precisely grounded as a rule of law, when it was 
judicially laid down that even in places where originals did not run, if such 
places were in the King's power a royal mandate must be obeyed." 4 The 
political and administrative implications of this are obvious. 
The contemporaneous use of devices for review of judgments no doubt contributed 
toward settling the übiquity of certain types of royal process, since 
the review jurisdiction was a species of evoking pleas coram rege, although 
after judgment. It is distinguished further by the fact that the practice of review 
was developed from theories peculiar to itself. The theory which touched 
the dominions was in point of jurisdiction derived from feudal law which 
vested in an overlord appeals for default of justice, and which conceived as 
possible progressive recourse up the feudal ladder to the suzerain himself. 55 
The successful planting in England of this conception of progressive appeal 
was frustrated by the royal claim to an immediate prerogative over all cases 
of unjust judgment or default of justice. 56 In consequence, the appeal per 
saltum had become the norm before the twelfth century was out, 57 although 
it was not until the Statute of Marlborough that the principle was irrevocably 
settled. 58 
The appeal procedure for unjust judgment which the Normans had brought 
to England was neither a procedure for the correction of errors nor a review 
of the merits, of a controversy inter partes. As the word appeal in its medieval 
connotation suggests, it was an accusatory proceeding at the instance of a 
party aggrieved by a judgment, against the courtkeeper or body of judgment 
finders. 59 It had this in common with appeals of felony, that an issue of perjury 
53 3 Sayles, op. cit., xlvi et seq. 
54 YB 19 Edw. 11l (R.S.), 337- 
55 On this, cf. Mitteis, Lehnrecht und Staatsgewalt 
(1933) 298, 316, 538 et seq.; Fournier, 
Essai sur I'histoire du droit d'appel (1881), 140 
et seq.; Adams, Council and Courts in Anglo- 
Norman England (1926), 161 et seq. 
56 Leges Henrici, 10.1; 59, 19. Cf. ibid., 33, ia, 
and Glanville, De legihus xii, 7. The false or 
unjust judgment is broadly a species of default 
of justice, but Leges Henrici appears to distinguish 
between them {cf. 33, 2; 33, 3a) not 
because the difference was vital to found jurisdiction, 
but chiefly because different procedures 
were involved, arid the sanction falls in the 
first case on the body of judgment finders and 
in the latter may be confined to the court keeper 
(ibid., 7, 6). 
57 Adams, op. cit., 164 n. 20. In Italy in the 
eleventh century a similar rule of immediate 
appeal to the Emperor obtained (Mittcis, 
Der Stoat des Hohen Mittelalters [1940], 
163). 
58 c. 19, 1 Statutes of the Realm (R.C.), 24. 
59 The Normans appear to have taken over the 
Frankish procedure for impeaching judgments 
(cf. 2 Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte [2d 
ed.], 473 et seq.). Certain incidents, such as 
battle, were embroidery put upon it by feudal 
society. It is to be noted that the Anglo-Saxons 
used a procedure for impeaching judgments 
which bore certain resemblances to the original 
Frankish institution (2 Liebermann, Gesetze der 
Angelsachsen [1906], s.v. Urteilschelte).