Editing Writ (section)

===Development===
The development of writs as a means of commencing a court action was a form of "off-the-shelf" justice designed to enable the English law courts to rapidly process lawsuits by allocating each complaint form into a standard category that could be dealt with by standard procedures. The complainant applied to the court for the writ most relevant to his complaint to be sent to the wrongdoer, which ordered him under royal authority to attend a royal court to answer for his actions. The development was part of the establishment of a [[Court of Common Pleas]], for dealing with commonly made complaints by subjects of the crown, for example: "someone has damaged my property". The previous system of justice at the royal [[court of Chancery]] was tailor-made to suit each case and was thus highly time-consuming. Thus eventually the obtaining of a writ became necessary, in most cases, to have a case heard in one of the Royal Courts, such as the [[Court of King's Bench (England)|King's Bench]] or [[Court of Common Pleas (England)|Common Pleas]]. Some franchise courts, especially in the [[County Palatine|Counties Palatine]], had their own system of writs, which often reflected or anticipated the common law writs. The writ was "served" on (delivered in person to) the wrongdoer and acted as a command that he should appear at a specified time and date before the court specified in the writ, or it might command some other act on the part of the recipient.

Where a [[plaintiff]] wished to have a case heard by a local court or by the justice of an [[Eyre (legal term)|Eyre]] if one happened to be visiting the county, there would be no need to obtain a writ. An informal complaint could usually start actions in local courts. However, if a plaintiff wished to avail himself of Royal — and by implication superior — justice in one of the King's courts, then he would need a writ, a command of the King, to enable him to do this. Initially, for common law, recourse to the King's courts was unusual, and something for which a plaintiff would have to pay. For most Royal Courts, the writ would usually have been purchased from the Chancery, although the court of the [[Exchequer of Pleas|Exchequer]], being, in essence, another government department, could issue its own writs.

While originally writs were exceptional, or at least non-routine devices, [[Frederic William Maitland|Maitland]] suggests that by the time of [[King Henry II of England|King Henry II]] (1154–1189), the use of writs had become a regular part of the system of royal justice in England.

At first, new writs were drafted to fit each unique situation. However, in practice, the clerks of the Chancery would use wording from previously issued writs, with suitable adjustments, often taken from reference books containing collections of forms of writ, much as in modern times, lawyers frequently use fixed precedents or [[Boilerplate text|boilerplate]], rather than re-inventing the wording of a new legal document. The problem with this approach was that a plaintiff's rights and available forms of action at his disposal, would be defined, and in most cases limited, by the limited variety of writs available to him. Thus, the power to create new writs was akin to the power to create new rights, a form of extra-parliamentary legislation. Moreover, a writ, if one could be found fitting the plaintiff's case, provided the legal means to remove the dispute from the jurisdiction of the local court, often controlled by a lesser [[nobility|noble]], and instead have it heard by the King's judges. The nobility thus saw the creation of new writs as an erosion of their influence.

Over time, opposition to the creation of new writs by the Chancery increased. For example, in 1256, a court was asked to quash a writ as "novel, unheard of, and against reason".<ref name="Abbot v. Harcourt">{{cite web |title=Abbot of Lilleshall v Harcourt 96 SS xxix 44 |url=https://s3.studentvip.com.au/notes/12864-sample.pdf |website=Student VIP |access-date=9 April 2025 |date=1256}}</ref> Ultimately, in 1258, the King was forced to accept the [[Provisions of Oxford]], which among other things, prohibited the creation of new forms of writ without the sanction of the [[Curia Regis|King's council]].<ref name="Baker_Page_63">{{cite book |last1=Baker |first1=John |author1-link=John Baker (legal historian) |title=An Introduction to English Legal History |date=2019 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=9780198812609 |page=63 |edition=5th |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0S0zEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA63 |access-date=August 26, 2023}}</ref> New writs were created after that time only by the express sanction of Parliament and the forms of writ remained essentially static, each writ defining a particular [[form of action]].<ref name="Baker_Page_63" /> It was the role and expertise of a [[solicitor]] to select on his client's behalf the appropriate writ for the proposed legal action. These were purchased from the court by payment of a fee. The solicitor would then hire a [[barrister]] to speak for his client in court.