With the advent of this enlightened procedure, the
secta soon ceased to decide the case, and it may well be asked
why it did not disappear and leave no traces.
Taking into account the conservatism of the English law, and the
fact that, before deeds came in, the only debts for which there
had been a remedy were debts proved by the transaction witnesses,
it would not have been a surprise to find the tender of suit
persisting in those cases. But there was another reason still
more imperative. The defence in debt where there was no deed was
by wager of law. /2/ A section of Magna Charta was interpreted to
prohibit a man's being put to his law on the plaintiff's own
statement without good witness. /3/ Hence, the statute required
witness--that is, the secta--in every case of debt where the
plaintiff did not rely upon a writing. Thus it happened that suit
continued to be tendered in those cases where it had been of old,
/4/ and as the defendant, if he did not admit the debt in such
cases, always waged his law, it was long before the inquest got
much foothold.
To establish a debt which arose merely by way of promise or
acknowledgment, and for which there had formerly [264] been no
mode of trial provided, you must have a writing, the new form of
proof which introduced it into the law.
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