urt to find
distress on his tenement and if he could find none, he could
take the tenement for a year and a day in his hands without
manuring it. It the tenant paid up in this time, he got the
tenement back. If he didn't within a year and a day,
however, the lord could manure the land. A felon forfeited
his life and his goods, but not his lands or tenements. A
wife of a felon had the dower of one half or her husband's
lands and tenements.

The common law recognized the tort of false imprisonment if
a man arrested as a felon, a person who was not a felon.

- Judicial Procedure -

The writ of Quo Warranto [by what right] is created, by which all
landholders exercising jurisdictions must bring their ancestors'
charters before a traveling justice for the Common Pleas for
examination and interpretation as to whether they were going
beyond their charters and infringing upon the jurisdiction of the
Royal Court. As a result, many manor courts were confined to
manorial matters and could no longer view frankpledge or hear
criminal cases, which were reserved for the royal courts. In the
manor courts which retained criminal jurisdiction, there was a
reassertion of the obligation to have present a royal coroner,
whose duty it was to see that royal rights were not infringed and
that the goods of felons were given to the Crown and not kept by
the lords.

The supreme court was the king and his council in Parliament. It
heard the most important causes, important because they concern
the king, or because they concern very great men (e.g. treason), or
because they involve grave questions of public law, or because
they are unprecedented. It has large, indefinite powers and
provides new remedies for new wrongs. The office of great
justiciar disappears and the chancellor becomes the head of the
council. After the council were the royal courts of the King's
Bench, Common Pleas, and the Exchequer, which had become separate,
each with its own justices and records. The Court of Common Pleas
had its own Chief Justice and usually met at Westminster. This
disadvantaged the small farmer, who would have to travel to
Westminster to present a case. The King's Council maintained a
close connection with the Court of the King's Bench, which heard
criminal cases and appeals from the Court of Common Pleas. It
traveled with the King. There were many trespass cases so heard by
it in the reign of Edward I. The King's Coun