was involved, that trial was by battle, and that sanctions awaited the loser. 60 
Since the chief features of a proceeding for falsifying a judgment obtained 
in all places where French feudalism had spread, 61 the rudiments of a legal 
mechanism for the exercise of imperial authority were present, although the 
limitations as a device for controlling the law of any dominion are manifest. 
As this procedure developed within the realm, it underwent modifications 
which not only changed the scope of the jurisdiction, but led to a new conception 
of the review process. In the main this was part and parcel of common 
law growth, but some features emerged from the control of dominion cases 
during the period when common law forms were in the course of being settled. 
It is consequently desirable to make some inquiry into the evolution of the 
English procedures themselves. These have received only the most fugitive 
attention of historians: a neglect which needs to be repaired, in view of the 
great political significance of review jurisdiction both within the realm and 
without. No one, moreover, will dispute that whatever will or will not be done 
with respect to errors and defaults in outlying dominions is necessarily conditioned 
by the practices and prevailing ideas at the center of the imperial administration. 

The most notable of the changes in English law had to do with manipulations 
of the record concept which so reconstituted the appeal of feudal law 
that a correction of error could be effected. Record was a Norman importation. 
It had originally nothing to do with writings, signifying only a remembrance 
of transactions, and in a society generally unlettered the manner of 
remembrance was necessarily oral. 62 So far as judicial proceedings were concerned, 
the duty of remembrance was laid upon those who participated in 
judgment. Both English and French sources indicate that the suitor who functioned 
as judgment finder according to the old law was equally charged with 
bearing record. 63 The Anglo-Norman sources of the early twelfth century 
make a significant addition: that record of the King's court cannot be impeached, 
but record of other courts may be traversed. 64 One source confines 
the rule of unimpeachability to the court where the King is personally 
present, 65 but if this was once true, the privilege was presently extended to 
60 Brunner, Wort und Form im altfranzosischen 
Prozess, in Forschungen, 346 et seq. 
61 Gebauer, Studien zur Geschichte der Urteilschelte, 
in 17 Zeitschrift der Savigny Stiftung 
fur Rechtsgeschichte (Germ. Abt.), 33. 
62 Brunner, Entstehung der Schwurgerichte 
(1872), 189 etseq. 
63 For France, see Brunner, Das Gerichtszeugnis 
und die jran\ische Konigsur\unde, in 1 
Abhandlungen, 417, 422; Mitteis, Beaumanoir 
Una die geistliehe Gerichtsbarkeit, in 35 Zeitschrift 
der Sav. Stift. fur Rechtsgeschichte 
(Kanonistische Abt.), 335. The English practice 
is indicated in the early twelfth-century 
compilation Leges Edwardi Conjessoris, 36, 3. 
It is still operative in the fourteenth century; 
cf. YB 45 Edw. 111, Hil. pi. 2. 
64 Leges Henrici, 31, 4; 48, 6. 
65 Lets Willelme, 24.