the several manifestations of Curia Regis. 66 We shall have something more to 
say about this in a moment, but we must first consider how the record notion 
was applied to the English local courts, where the old forms of judgment prevailed, 
because the review jurisdiction was first exercised with respect to these 
bodies. 
Where complaint is made against the judgment of a county court, a royal 
writ commands the sheriff to have a record made {recordari facias) of the 
suit, and four knights who participated in making it are to bear it and appear 
in the King's court. 67 In the case of a feudal court, the sheriff is to associate 
with himself four knights and proceed to have a record made which four lawful 
men of the court baron are to bear to Westminster. 68 The record thus 
borne is clearly an ad hoc memorial after the event, and in the subsequent 
proceedings before the King's court the procedure is a contention between the 
complainant and the record bearers, although the winning litigant below, 
being present, may be asked to confirm or deny the record. 69 The pleading 
revolves about the truth or untruth of the account proffered by the record 
bearers, and about its completeness. 70 Usually the record is a relation of the 
several stages of the litigation in terms of process, pleading, and trial procedure. 
This is propounded and traversed as matter in pais. But the facts in controversy, 
being ordinarily on points of procedure, are peculiarly within the cognizance 
of the reviewing tribunal. Here, as in appeals of felony, the King's courts 
in the early thirteenth century on the basis of a distinction between facts which 
were substantively material and those which concerned procedural irregularity 
were arrogating to themselves the determination of the latter. Since only the 
judgment itself, not the record, had to be defended by duel, 71 joinder on the 
ultimate issue of perjury and consequent wager of battle could be sidestepped. 
The reviewing court, having heard out complainant and record bearers, could 
specify what it deemed to be error in the proceedings below and by its judgment 
set matters aright. 72 The persistence of the original penal characteristics 
of the action are observable in the retention of sanctions. 73 
66 Dialogus de Scaccario (Hughes Crump & 
Johnson eds.), 67; Glanville De legibus (Woodbine 
ed.), viii, 9. 
67 The writ is in Fitzherbert, Natura Brevium, 
188. Glanville speaks of this ad hoc recording 
as per assisam de concilio inde jactam, suggesting 
an ordinance of some recency. On the procedure, 
see 2 Pollock & Maitland, History of 
English Law, 666 et seq., and Woodbine's notes 
in his edition of Glanville, 240 et seq. 
68 The writ, accedas ad curiam, is in Fitzherbert, 
Natura Brevium, 18D. 
69 Cf. 2 Curia Regis Rolls (hereafter cited CRR), 
260; 8 CRR 389; Bracton's Notebook, pi. 1436. 
70 Cf. 1 CRR 277 (whole record false); 6 CRR 
230-31 (part recorded "wilfully"); Bracton's 
Notebook pi. 40; pi. 243, pi. 1138 (part good, 
part bad). 
71 Glanville, De legibus, viii, 9. 
72 For example, 6 CRR 230, Bracton's Notebook, 
pi. 40, pi. 824; pi. 1436. 
73 Glanville, op. cit., viii, 11, avers that a lord 
may lose his court. The normal practice is 
amercement of a county for a false judgment in 
the county court.