I.: Medieval Interpretations.

Ignorance of the exact nature of the abuse prohibited may well be excused at the present day, since it had become obscure within a century of the granting of the Charter. Some legal notes of the early fourteenth century, containing three alternative suggestions, have come down to us.

(1) The first interpretation discussed, and apparently dismissed, in these notes, was that Magna Carta by this prohibition wished to ensure that no one should serve on a jury (in juratam) unless he had been warned by a timely summons. This far–fetched suggestion is clearly erroneous.

(2) The next hypothesis raised is that the clause prevented the defendant on a writ of debt (or any similar writ) from winning his case by his unsupported oath, where compurgators ought to have sworn along with him. Exception was, in this view, taken to the bailiff treating favoured defendants in civil pleas with unfair leniency.

(3) A third opinion is stated and eulogized as a better one, namely, that the Charter prohibited bailiffs from showing undue favour to plaintiffs in civil pleas. The defendant on a writ of debt (or the like) should not, in this interpretation of Magna Carta, be compelled to go to proof at all (that is, to make his “law”) unless the plaintiff had brought “suit” against him (that is, had raised a presumption that the claim was good, by production of preliminary witnesses or by some recognized equivalent).