Catalogue description Court of Common Pleas: Brevia de Conventione Files

The series consists of bundles of praecipe writs produced by Chancery for the Court of Common Pleas and addressed to the English sheriffs.

The nature of the writs is that the sheriffs are to order the defendants (‘deforciants’) to keep the agreement or covenant made with the plaintiffs (‘demandants’) about properties specified in the document, and to summon them to appear before the court at a given return day in case the agreement is not fulfilled, hence why these documents were called writs of covenant (‘Brevia de Conventione’).

These writs of covenant were issued by the Cursitors' Office of Chancery, or its predecessors, for levying final concords in the Court of Common Pleas by means of a collusive suit initiated by the writ. When the fine had been made the writs were retained by the chirographer, the official responsible for drawing up the fine; he was doing so by the 1360s at the latest. During the thirteenth century a variety of different sorts of writ were used to initiate suits intended to end in final concords, but by the early years of Edward III the writ of covenant had become dominant, and only a few later examples are known of other writs being used. The formulae of the writs are well known and easily ascertained from formularies and accounts of court practice. By the sixteenth century the face of the writ bore only the sum paid for the issue of the writ and paid into the hanaper. Until about the middle of the reign of Henry VII, the name of the judge before whom the fine was made is usually annotated at the top of the writ, in the middle or towards the left. Before the mid fifteenth century other annotations often appear. Some of them were certainly made by the chirographer for filing purposes. Endorsements normally included, in the fourteenth century, from the top to the bottom, the name of the attorney, the names of the two pledges for prosecution of the writ (apparently still real people), the names of the two summoners (likewise), and the name of the sheriff making the return. Later, by the mid fifteenth century, the position formerly occupied by the name of the attorney was taken up with a written oath by him that the value of the property which was the subject of the writ did not exceed a particular value, which was given; by the mid sixteenth century, the oath was signed by the attorney. By that period also the names of the pledges and summoners were invariably fictitious.

The earliest example of a complete file yet identified is from the 10th year of the reign of Edw III (1336) and the latest example is from 9 Anne (1710).

Writs of covenant from broken files are in CP 50