18. If two titles are concurrent together, the oldest title shall be preferred.
19. He who recovers debt or damages in the King's court when the person charged is not in custody, may within a year after the judgment take the body of the defendant, and commit him to prison until he has paid the debt and damages.
20. If the demandant or plaintiff, hanging his writ (writ pending in court), will enter into the thing demanded, his writ shall abate.
21. By the alienation of the tenant, hanging the writ, or his entry into religion, or if he is made a knight, or she is a woman and takes a husband hanging the writ, the writ shall not abate.
22. The king may disseise no man and no man may disseise the king, nor pull any reversion or remainder out of him.
- Judicial Procedure -
The prohibition against maintenance was given penalties in 1406 of 100s. per person for a knight or lower giving livery of cloth or hats, and of 40s. for the receiver of such. A person who brought such suit to court was to be given half the penalty. The Justices of Assize and King's Bench were authorized to inquire about such practices. The statute explicitly included ladies and any writing, oath, or promise as well as indenture. Excepted were guilds, fraternities, and craftsmen of cities and boroughs which were founded on a good purpose, universities, the mayor and sheriffs of London, and also lords, knights, and esquires in time of war. A penalty of one year in prison without bail was given. In 1468, there was a penalty of 100s. per livery to the giver of such, 100s. per month to the retainer or taker of such, and 100s. per month to the person retained. Still this law was seldom obeyed.
People took grievances outside the confines of the rigid common law to the Chancellor, who could give equitable remedies under authority of a statute of 1285 (described in Chapter 8). The Chancery heard many cases of breach of faith in the "use", a form of trust in which three parties were involved: the holder of land, feofees to whom the holder had made it over by conveyance or "bargain and sale", and the beneficiary or receiver of the profits of the land, who was often the holder, his children, relatives, friends, an institution, or a corporation. This system of using land had been created by the friars to get around the prohibition against holding property. Lords and gentry quickly adopted it. The advantages of the use were that 1) there was no legal restriction to will away the beneficial interest of the use although the land itself could not be conveyed by will; 2) it was hard for the king to collect feudal incidents because the feoffees were often unknown 3) the original holder was protected from forfeiture of his land in case of conviction of treason if the Crown went to someone he had not supported. Chancery gave a remedy for dishonest or defaulting feofees.
Chancery also provided the equitable relief of specific performance in disputes over agreements, for instance, conveyance of certain land, whereas the common law courts awarded only monetary damages by the writ of covenant.
Chancery ordered accounts to be made in matters of foreign trade because the common law courts were limited to accounts pursuant to transactions made within the nation. It also involved itself in the administration of assets and accounting of partners to each other.