{"title":"Trespass on the case","authors":"J. Baker","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198847809.003.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198847809.003.0013","url":null,"abstract":"In the fourteenth century a variety of new kinds of action appeared in the royal courts as a result of allowing writs of trespass to be issued without the ‘force and arms’ clause. In such writs the plaintiff had to set out the gist of his ‘special case’ in lieu of the generalized assertion of force. This chapter shows how contemporaries regarded ‘actions on the case’ and what was considered to be their range. Some later discussions in the chapter show lawyers trying to rationalize the distinction between ‘trespass’ (that is, trespass with force and arms) and ‘case’ in terms of physical directness.","PeriodicalId":197105,"journal":{"name":"Baker and Milsom Sources of English Legal History","volume":"211 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131683025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Executory interests under the Statute of Uses","authors":"J. Baker","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198847809.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198847809.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter shows how lawyers grappled with the effect of the Statutes of Uses and Wills on future interests in land, and the possibilities which they seemed to introduce for creating new kinds of estates in land. The legislation seemingly transformed land law by giving legal effect to a party’s wishes, in the first case by ‘executing the use’ and in the second by giving force to a testator’s ‘free will and pleasure’. Conveyancers thought for a time that this gave them the means of creating perpetual settlements of a family’s land. A number of leading cases reported by Coke show how perpetuity clauses were eventually outlawed by the judges, and how executory interests were to a limited extent subjected to principles of law. The chapter ends with Lord Nottingham’s formulation of a doctrine of perpetuities in 1682.","PeriodicalId":197105,"journal":{"name":"Baker and Milsom Sources of English Legal History","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127227462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Covenant","authors":"J. Baker","doi":"10.1093/obo/9780195393361-0225","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780195393361-0225","url":null,"abstract":"The writ of covenant lay to enforce agreements, but it came to be restricted by formality. This chapter is principally devoted to the evolution of the rule requiring a deed - a written document under seal - to evidence a covenant. There was no clear rule before 1321, and it was at first possible to wage law in covenant actions, or to refer them to a jury. From 1292, however, there are signs of a nascent principle, of uncertain scope, that a plaintiff might fail unless he had written evidence of the covenant in the form of a sealed deed. The reports are all of exceptions to this principle – which is not directly explained – until in 1321 it was clearly stated as a general rule of evidence. It was a rule which applied only in the royal courts and did not, therefore, import any narrow understanding of what a covenant was. And the deed did not preclude a plea of performance, since it was evidence only of the covenant, not of its breach.","PeriodicalId":197105,"journal":{"name":"Baker and Milsom Sources of English Legal History","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128976406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Family interests and settlements at common law","authors":"J. Baker","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198847809.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198847809.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"The cases in this chapter relate to property provisions for widows (dower), widowers (curtesy), younger sons, and daughters. A group of reports throws light on the difficulties in interpreting conditional gifts restricted to descendants, culminating in the Statute De Donis (1285) and its outcome, the statutory fee tail. Later reports show the perplexity occasioned over the legal nature of the fee tail and its durability. There are also discussions of the common recovery as a method of barring the entail, of the concept of the remainder, and of doubts about the validity of contingent remainders.","PeriodicalId":197105,"journal":{"name":"Baker and Milsom Sources of English Legal History","volume":"68 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127230336","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assumpsit for nonfeasance","authors":"J. Baker","doi":"10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198258179.003.0049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198258179.003.0049","url":null,"abstract":"Among the writs of assumpsit issued in the fourteenth century were some alleging a mere failure to do what was promised (nonfeasance), the harm being economic rather than physical. The cases in this chapter show how the availability of such actions was controversial for nearly a century. Assumpsit for misfeasance had been allowed without dispute, because the misfeasance would have been a tort even without the undertaking. But assumpsit for nonfeasance rested wholly on a contractual agreement and arguably required written evidence of the agreement, if not a different writ (covenant). During the fifteenth century the action was established, after much debate, by deploying the concepts of bargain, reliance, and deceit. It enabled contracts to be enforced although there was no sealed agreement, as was required in the action of covenant. The turning point was Doige’s Case (1442), in which damages were recovered against a defaulting vendor of land.","PeriodicalId":197105,"journal":{"name":"Baker and Milsom Sources of English Legal History","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114060251","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}