edy of appeal manifested itself in the common law, the effects of doctrines respecting 
the reformation of sentences and the extraordinary remedy the retractatio 
are discernible in English practice. We have spoken of how deeply 
troubled the decretists were over the limitations of the appeal in coping with 
unjust sentences and how they were led by a sort of moral compulsion to admit 
that there were circumstances under which a sentence otherwise unappealable 
could be opened up for corrective action. 103 Since the situation fell without the 
normal ordo of procedure to which they were so passionately attached, special 
ways of approach were found. The sentence could be moved against either 
ex officio or upon supplication, and the Decretum apparently contemplated a 
reformation of the sentence at the hands of the original judge. 104 The pro- 
ceeding may be described in the jargon of our own times and own country as 
in the nature of a coram nobis. As a result of the intensified study of the civil 
law, the canonists presently identified their extraordinary remedy with the 
supplicatio 105 of Roman law. This term comes to be applied to the procedure, 
although it is more usually called retractatio. 106 The influence of Roman law 
is further evidenced by the fact that eventually the office of reformation is 
lodged in the hands of the Pope. The extraordinary character of the remedy 
remained, since it came to depend on petition, but it nevertheless must be 
classed as a device for review, because this was immediately involved. 
While it may seem curious that canonical doctrines about the reformation 
of judgments and the procedure of retractatio should have affected English 
law at an earlier date than did the ordinary remedy of appeal, not only had 
the retractatio been developed in connection with the theories of unjust sentences, 
which had become endenizened in the common law long before there 
were borrowings from the review procedures of the Church, but it was a 
remedy that was not confined to a route through a judicial hierarchy and so 
possessed superior attractions to a judiciary not organized along such lines. In 
particular, once the power of amendment was lodged in the Pope, an obvious 
parallel with prerogative action by the English King existed. 
Direct evidence is wanting that the retractatio inspired the exercise of the 
103 The basic discussion is in Decretum, Causa 
XXXV, q. IX. This is related by certain decretists 
to the discussion of the types of iniusta 
sententia in Causa XI, q. 11l {cf. Summa Rolandi 
233 and 25-26; Summa Rufini, 463-64, 
276 el seq.). The Bamberg ordo iudiciarius, 
c. xxi, follows the analysis with an added 
reference to a decretal of Alexander 111. 
i° 4 Decretum, Causa XXXV, q. IX, c. 2, diet. 
Grat. So, Summa Rufini, 464, in spiritual causes 
"semper sive ab eo iudice que pertulit sive a 
successore vel ab alio cuius interest." {Cf. also 
Der Ordo iudiciarius des Codex Bambergensis, 
c. xxi). In the French Incerti auctoris ordo 
iudiciarius, XX, § 5, a conflict of opinion is 
stated; viz., as between him to whom supplicatio 
is made and to a higher judge. 
106 On this cf. 3 Bethmann-Hollweg, Civilprozess 
des Gemeinen Rechts (1864), 338 et 
seq. 
106 gee generally, 6 Hinschius, Das Kirchenrecht 
der Katholi\en und Protestanten in 
Deutschland (1869-97), 131; 1 Munchen, Das 
Kanonische Gerichtsverfahren (1874), 568.