A statute was a particularly solemn and binding promise of the king, who might call in interested groups to help him frame it but was under no obligation to do so. It was never claimed as a regular function of the king's prerogative prior to Edward. Edward's legislation was mainly concerned with the establishment of the rights of the Crown and the provision of remedies against usurpation of these rights by the barons. His statutes attempted to define the boundary between rights and feudal privileges, and to define feudal tenures, whenever possible, to the king's advantage. This word is used in contradistinction to the common law.
Statutes acquire their force from the time of their passage unless otherwise provided.
Private statutes may be rendered public by being so declared by the legislature. Declaratory or remedial. A declaratory statute is one which is passed in order to put an end to a doubt as to what the common law is, and which declares what it is, and has ever been. Remedial statutes are those which are made to supply such defects, and abridge such superfluities in the common law as may have been discovered . The term remedial statute is also applied to those acts which give the party injured a remedy, and in some respects those statutes are penal.