Common Pleas

THE COURT OF. In English law. (So called because its original jurisdiction was to determine controversies between subject and subject.) One of the three superior courts of common law at Westminster, presided over by a lord chief justice and five (formerly four, until 31 & 32 Vict. c. 125, § 11, subsec. 8) puisne judges. It was detached from the king's court (aula regis) as early as the reign of Richard I., and the fourteenth clause of Magna Charta enacted that it should not follow the king's court, but be held in some certain place. Its jurisdiction was altogether confined to civil matters, having no cognizance in criminal cases, and was concurrent with that of the queen's bench and exchequer in personal actions and ejectment. Wharton.

Court of. \h. Lat. bancus, bancus communis, communia pladta.'] One of the superior courts of common law in England, consisting of a chief justice and four puisne judges; supposed by some writers to have been first established as a permanent court by Magna Charta, and now constantly held in Westminster Hall; called also anciently, and still sometimes technically, the court of Common Bench, (q. v.) 3 Bl. Com. 37—40. 8 Stqi>h, Com, 402. Termes delaley. Gilb, C. Fleas, Inirod. 31. Lord Coke supposes it to have existed before Magna Charta, and quotes in support of this opinion not only Glanville, but the twelfth and thirteenth chapters of Magna Charta itself, where mention is made of the justices of the bench {de banco) [the ancient title of this court,] as of a court already estab Ushed. Glanv, lib. 2, c. 6. 2 Inst. 22. 1 Beeves* Mist. Eng, Law, 57, 68. 8 Co, pref. Id. 289. See Bancus, Bench, The title of "Common Pleas " {ctrnmuwia pladta,) may, however, have b^n derived from the eleventh chapter of the Charter. This court has always exercised an exclusive jurisdiction over real actions, and has been considered as the principal seat of the learning relative to ordinary actions between man and man, (or common pleas, as they were anciently denominated.) Hence it is styled by Lord Coke " the lock and key of the common law." 4 Inst. 99. 3 Bl, Com. 40. 3 Steph. Com. 402. Its practice seems to have been, from a very ancient period, monopolized by a class of advocates termed serjeant counters, or counters of the bench, {band narratores, qq. V.); and the same exclusive privilege has been enjoyed by the modem Serjeants at law, during term time, down to the year 1834, when the court was suddenly opened to the whole profession by royal warrant, the validity of which, however, was, after an acquiescence of five years, successfully impeached by the Serjeants, and in 1840 the court was closed. Recently, however, this privilege has been abolished by statute, and the court permanently thrown open to the English bar generally. 3 Man, Or, ik Scott, 637.