Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 4, Page 279

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Volume 4, Page 279

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[001] judgments be valid, it is necessary to see whether the justice has a warrant from the
[002] king so that he may judge, for if he has no warrant what will be done before him will
[003] have no validity, done, so to speak, before one not his proper judge. ¹The original
[004] writ ought first to be read and then the writ constituting him a justice; if he has no
[005] such writ at all, or if he has but it is not at hand, he need not be obeyed, unless the
[006] original writ makes mention of his judicial authority.² Nor is he to be obeyed if an
[007] exception is raised to his jurisdiction, that he was³ subdelegated by one who could
[008] not appoint a judge, as where one justice appoints another under him to decide the
[009] whole cause, [which has no more validity] than if a procurator should appoint a
[010] procurator.⁴ Nor must he be obeyed when it is excepted against him that, though he
[011] shows his warrant, jurisdiction and cognisance has been transferred to another by
[012] the person who delegated,⁵ for if one at different times appoints two judges, by
[013] appointing the latter he is taken to have superseded the former. Nor is he to be obeyed
[014] though he has been delegated and has his warrant, if it is excepted against him that
[015] under the pretext of one plea he wishes to take cognisance of others to which his
[016] jurisdiction does not extend, or if when he has jurisdiction in one⁶ plea, exceeds the
[017] limits of his mandate and extends his jurisdiction to [another] when his office has
[018] ended,⁷ [or to] matters which follow an assise, after the taking of the assise, as
[019] certification and conviction, when he has no general jurisdiction delegated to him,
[020] as have the justices itinerant in the counties ad omnia placita or chief justices.⁸

Against the jurisdiction of an inferior justice.

[022] An exception lies against the jurisdiction of an inferior justice where one jurisdiction
[023] is superior to another, as where one is impleaded as to one and the same thing by one
[024] or several in different courts, as in the court of the lord king and the court of a baron
[025] or of some other of lower rank, in which case the more important hall of justice ought
[026] to be preferred to the less important.⁹ If in the greater court the tenant shows that
[027] he is impleaded on the same matter in a lesser court, a prohibition will be issued on
[028] the king's behalf forbidding that plea to proceed in the inferior court. And though

Notes

1. Om: ‘quia’

2. Supra iii, 82, 142, 259

3. ‘quod fuit’

4. Supra 145

5. Supra ii, 308

6. ‘unum’

7. D. 42.1.55; supra ii, 308

8. Supra ii, 308

9. Supra 156