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The court of Common Pleas, known until the late sixteenth century as the 'Bench' or the 'Common Bench', was one of the most important courts in the English legal system from its creation in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century until it and the other central courts (the King's Bench, Chancery and Exchequer) were abolished by the Judicature Act of 1873, which transferred their jurisdiction to a single High Court.1The 'Common Bench' separated from the Exchequer in the middle of the last decade of the twelfth century, at which time it began to hold sessions on a regular basis during four designated terms each year. From then onwards it also employed its own personnel, separate from that of the Exchequer.2During the reign of Henry ii (r. 1154-89), a central royal court started to sit regularly at Westminster,3but King John (r. 1199-1216) continued his predecessors' practice of forgoing a permanent base for his own household, preferring to travel round his domains, so that for considerable periods during his reign several of the royal courts, including the Common Bench, suspended their activities and, as a consequence, plaintiffs and defendants were forced to seek out the king, wherever he might be, in order to sue for justice. Dissatisfaction with the resulting tedious and lengthy process led to the inclusion in Magna Carta (1215) of a clause laying down that 'common pleas should not follow the king but should be held in some certain place'.4In the specific context of Magna Carta, the words 'common pleas' did not indicate an actual court, but rather the type of case to be heard: one which did not necessarily involve offences against the king's peace and was therefore likely to be a civil rather than a criminal matter.
Only after 1234 (the end of the minority of Henry iii (r. 1216-72)) is it possible to identify the two principal courts of English Common law by name: the court of Common Pleas (known as curia de banco) and the court of King's Bench (curia coram rege).5King's Bench started by hearing civil cases, but developed into a court primarily concerned...