Forms of action

The forms of action were the different procedures by which a legal claim could be made during much of the history of the English common law. Depending on the court, a plaintiff would purchase a writ in Chancery (or file a bill) which would set in motion a series of events eventually leading to a trial in one of the medieval common law courts. Each writ entailed a different set of procedures and remedies which together amounted to the "form of action".

The forms of action were abolished during the 19th century, but they have left an indelible mark on the law. In the early Middle Ages, the focus was on the procedure that was employed to bring one's claim to the royal courts of King's Bench or Common Pleas: it was the form of one's action, not its substance, which occupied legal discussion. This restrictive approach is one of the reasons which attracted litigants to petition the King directly, which eventually led to the development of a separate court known as the Court of Chancery, from which the body of law known as Equity derives. Modern English law, as in most other legal systems, now looks to substance rather than to form: a claimant need only demonstrate that he or she has a valid cause of action.

The substantive law lay buried beneath the various actions: medieval practitioners and judges thought procedurally, not substantively. Rights and duties which we would consider to be part of the law of property, tort, contract or unjust enrichment were not conceptualised as such.

In the early medieval period, justice was administered at a local level. Following the Norman conquest of England in the 11th century, a system of royal central justice gradually took shape. The principal royal courts were King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer. These royal courts were initially only interested in matters relating to the feudal system: that is, to land law. Accordingly, many of the earliest writs dealt with real property. For example:

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