A STUDY IN LEGAL ADMINISTRATION AND RECORDS SHARON ...

confomed to the wrong for which he sought redress. If the writ was inexact he
could be denied further access to a remedy. In addition, the writs were so
expensive that many injured parties could not Mord to initiate a suit.'
There was another difficulty with the administration of justice. men the
common law was in its formative stages, judges had considerable flexibility in
administering the law. They could make "equitable" decisions, citing the
authority of "natural law" and "God's law." In the thirteenth century judges began
to refer to preœdent or decisions taken previous~y.~ Reliance on precedent
increased, even though this method was often too rigid to accommodate the
dispensing of fair justice. The restrictions of the Latin writs, the inflexibility of
precedent, and other problems forced plaintiffs often to petition by English bill
directly to the king for reliefs and remedies allegedly not available in his common
law courts (King's Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer). By the mid-fourteenth
century, to alleviate the situation, the king had delegated hearing the growing
number of direct petitions to his Lord Chancellor, who in tum created a fonnal
Court of Chancery, also known as Court of Equity or sometimes of Conscience.
Equity has more than one meaning. Frederic W. Maitland declared equity
to be a "gloss," or a collection of appendices to the law.' Henry Maine spoke of
equity as "any body of niles existing by the side of the original law, founded on
distinct principles and claiming incidentally to supersede the civil law in virtue of
a superior sanctity inherent in those princip~es."~ He explained that equitable
doctrines often develop when the law does not change to meet the needs of