Catalogue description Chancery: Levari Facias Writ Files

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Details of C 243
Reference: C 243
Title: Chancery: Levari Facias Writ Files
Description:

Writs to assist in recovering debts under the common law, an alternative to proceeding under the Statute of Merchants and the Statute of the Staple, which gave execution upon the goods, chattels and issues of the lands of the defaulting debtor.

After the Statute of the Staple, it was principally used against clerical debtors until the Tudor period when its popularity revived as the writ capias was allowed to follow upon the failure of a levari facias.

Most of these records were formerly included in C 47 and C 202

Date: 1274-1653
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English and Latin
Physical description: 109 file(s)
Administrative / biographical background:

Although an alternative method of recovering debts registered in Chancery was provided by the introduction of the writ elegit in 1285, and new methods of registration and recovery were instituted by the Statutes of Acton Burnell, of Merchants and of the Staple, the use of levari facias was never wholly superseded.

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