The dilemma posed by conflicting policies was the greater, since it involved 
a deep-seated postulate of early medieval law: respect for the formal vigor of 
a judgment regardless of intrinsic substantive faults, a postulate which drew 
strength from the ancient prescription of Anglo-Norman law that a proper 
observance of formalities insured the Tightness of result. This is why no remedy 
was initially available against a judgment, but merely the collateral satisfaction 
of an attack upon the probity of the judges. We have seen how within 
this framework English royal courts first went upon local judgments in terms 
of procedural irregularity. The fact that the record could be challenged afforded 
them a handhold, but we doubt that the resources of their native jurisprudence 
alone were adequate to have supported them in the full distance 
they traveled in subversion of tradition. On the contrary, we believe that there 
is evidence to support the conclusion that the English judges availed themselves 
of canonical learning, and that without this borrowing they would not 
have safely secured the jurisdiction in error. We think it probable also that the 
English King could have made nothing of his prerogative over defaults of 
justice in his dominions had not advantage been taken of the rational ideas 
promoted in the courts Christian. 
The most available portion of canonical learning on post-judgment problems 
had to do with basic ethical premises that were not inherently connected 
with ecclesiastical procedure, although they were evolved in the process of 
reconciling the principle of res iudicata with the lofty ends which the church's 
procedure was designed to serve. We refer to the dichotomy of the just and 
unjust sentences 89 —the imperative that a sentence be just and that there lay 
upon the law the obligation to deal properly with the unjust sentence. This 
was an obligation not discharged by the usual procedure of Gratian's time, for 
review by appeal was the sole remedy available and had to be used forthwith, 
otherwise the principle of the formal vigor of a judicial determination, even 
if wrong in point of substance or procedure, became operative. This was an 
undesirable state of affairs, especially in matrimonial causes, and consequently 
both in the Decretum and in the writings of early decretists the technique of 
distinction was used to establish a foothold for arriving at a remedy. The 
sentence iniusta ex animo is distinguished from that ex ordine and that ex 
causa—a classification which embraced in the first case the personal wrong of 
89 Gratian's Decretum is the most immediate 
legal source for the early period of common law 
development. The concept is basic to appeal 
jurisdiction (see his dictum, Causa 11, q. VI, c. 
10; and also Causa 11, q. VI, c. 17; and the discussion 
in Ricardus Anglicus, Summa de ordine 
judicium XXXVII, de app., in 2 Wahrmund, 
Quellen zur Geschichte des Romisch-Kanonischen 
Processes im Mittelalter [1915]; Schulte, 
Der Ordo Judiciarius des Codex Bambergensis 
[1872], c. 21 de sententiis [this latter ordo is 
almost certainly of English origin]).