Source: https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/lawsuits-shakespeares-england
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 20:47:56+00:00

Document:
Lawsuits in the Westminster courts of Chancery, Requests, and Star Chamber began with four alternating declarations, continued with interrogatories and depositions, and ended with final judgments. (For lawsuits in Coram Rege or the Court of King’s Bench, see below.) The initial four declarations were also called pleadings. Cases in law might contain additional pleadings, including demurrers, which argued that the case should be dismissed on specified grounds, or tried in a different court.
Granted that documentation in most lawsuits is incomplete, this general structure applies to Bellott v. Mountjoy (1612), Bendish v. Bacon (1615), Witter v. Heminges and Condell (1619), Condell et al. v. Brend (1632, 1634), and Benefield v. Burbage (1635).
Interrogatories were usually compiled on behalf of the plaintiff or the defendant. Multiple interrogatories may be compiled, for the various parties and witnesses.
Depositions are explicitly dated. Witnesses or deponents are identified by name, occupation, place of residence, and age (the latter always qualified with “or thereabouts” or “or above”). Depositions are in the hand of a court official, but are signed with the personal signature or mark of the deponent.
The C 24 series, called “Town Depositions” because the depositions were taken in London, is an immense collection. The testimonies of the deponents are recorded on sheets of paper of uniform size. These are folded in half and stacked with the relevant Interrogatories. The name of suit (plaintiff v defendant) is written on the outside of the folded unit, the law term and regnal year recorded below. Often the names of all the deponents are listed on the outside of the folded unit; if not, they can be culled from the document itself. “Town Depositions” are accessed via the “Berneau Index” at the Society of Genealogists, London, on 16mm microfilm. Finding a particular name may be tedious and is sometimes difficult, but the Berneau Index makes it possible.
Surviving documentation from the court of King’s Bench (Coram Rege) represents the side of the King or of the plaintiff only. Entries are in Latin, generally compressed, formulaic, and procedural. Ostler v. Heminges (1615) is the sole example of a King’s Bench suit among our Shakespeare documents.

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