Appendix CASE ONE - Collection Point® | The Total Digital Asset ...

The Presentation of Cases in Medieval Chancery Bills 15
Although the order of the wording of the description of the 'approval'
of the forgery at Salisbury is different in the two bills (11. 82-91), the
fact that the provisions of this document were contrary to the true will is
clear.
Around these consistent elements in the two bills, the variant aspects of
each case are clearly set forth. The holding of which Gye was seised and
from which his bequests to the two petitioners came is described in both
bills, but not in exactly the same way: Isabell states that it comprised five
messuages, one cottage and three gardens, with appurtenances, while John
notes that it was simply five messuages with appurtenances. They do agree
that it was in New Salisbury and held in demesne as in fee. Because there
are two distinct petitioners in these bills, it is to be expected that the sections
of each document that reflect upon them personally would be distinct. In
the Incipit, Isabell describes herself as a poor and continual orator, while
John presents himself as simply the chancellor's continual orator. In the
Conclusion Isabell notes her great hurt, hindrance and undoing as the widow
of the testator, while John, as befits his position with respect to Gye, refers
to his disinheritance.
The various sections that comprise the plea follow the same order in
both documents, but there are stylistic variants in each. Isabell in her
Supplication looks to the 'right myghty' qualities of the chancellor, while
John invokes his graciousness; Isabell asks consideration of the premises,
John of the fact that he is poor and fatherless. A request for a subpoena
is present in the Request for Process of both bills, as is a description
of its effect in the appearance of Luffyng before the chancellor and his
examination, in Isabell's bill on the matter and in John's on the premises.
Regardless of the difference between the bequests to each petitioner from
Gye's holding, the same type of specific remedy is asked for initially:
Luffyng is to pay damages to the petitioners amounting to the value of
the part of the holding that they should each have had, for the period
since Gye's death. Because of the untruth and deceit of the approbation
of the forgery at Salisbury, Luffyng is also to pay the full value of the
two messuages that John should have had, and Isabell is to be paid the
value of the utensils and household furniture that should have been hers.
To these requests it is added that such penalties are appropriate because
Luffyng disturbed the possession of Isabell and caused the disinheritance of
John.
What these two bills present, then, is the activity of a single composer
drafting two separate bills relative to the same general case, and the
documents show clearly a person working within a variety of the canon
of chancery bill form that is his own. The overall order and structure of
the documents is the same, as are many of the phrases and much of the
vocabulary. There is a distinguishable and consistent style to the bills. As to
the writing itself, differences in orthography and morphology between the two
documents show clearly just how variable a single writer's language could be,