Writ Of Justice And The Common Law Is Formed

The system of writs is one of the most special and important frameworks of English common law. From 1200, the choice of writ governed the whole course of litigation from the beginning to the end, and the plaintiff selected the most appropriate writ at his peril. Procedures and methods of trial available in an action connected by one kind of writ were not necessarily available in another. As is known, the first stage in a medieval law student's training was to learn the writs, which is the foundation of the whole law. The learning about writs, forms of action and pleading was fundamental to the study of old common law. The formation of common law in English legal history, was closely associated with the transformation from royal executive writs to writs of judicialization from Norman Conquest (1066) to the reign of Henry - Angevin time (1154-1189)A sealed letter or writ was being used by Anglo-Saxon kings for administrative purposes side by side with the solemn royal diploma in the tenth and eleventh century. The writ form, at first in English, and then prevailingly in Latin, was adopted by the early Norman kings. It was developed by their successors, until the Anglo-Saxon royal writs, produced by the clerks of the royal secretariat, became in England the 'keystone' of 'system of centralized justice' ; And it has survived as a judicial and administrative instrument until the present day..The main attractions for the private litigant were probably the effective process and execution which royal v/rits authorized, and the availability (after 1200) of a central written record which would end dispute once and for all. Rather than seeing the Angevin Reform as based upon principles of centralization or rationality, therefore, it is better to describe them in terms of routinization, bureaucratization, and regulation.The thesis consists of five major parts besides preface and postscript. And its abstract is as follows:Part one: An introduction to the importance of "question on English law" and the judicialization of writs in early English legal history.Part two: An introduction to the development of royal writs in early England as well as the process of the judicialization of writs. On the basis of these, the author mainly analyses the classification of original writs.Part three: The social and political background of the judicialization of writs. The author mainly introduces the particularity and transition of king's authority in early England.Part four: The relationship between the judicialization of writs and Angevin Reform. First, the thesis describes the contribution of Henry II,cause the English legal framework and the birth of common law began in Henry- Angevin Reform time; then the thesis mainly introduces four Pretty Assizes on which the system of writs is based.Part five: The relationship between the formation of common law and the judicializatiort of writs. In the process of the birth of English common law, the arising of royal courts is the first and the most important step. It is the process that royal courts transcended the feudal courts and local courts in the competition to judicial jurisdiction. Meanwhile the thesis also analyses how the routinization of royal judicial administration influenced the formation of common law.