Settlement of Disputes by Arbitration in Fifteenth-Century England

Abstract

The history of arbitration procedures and extra-judicial forms of dispute settlement in medieval England remains largely unwritten. This neglect is no doubt attributable to the precocious development of the common law, which has monopolized the attention of English legal historians and left them little time to consider alternative forms of dispute resolution. Their main preoccupation, epitomized in the work of great scholars such as Maitland, Holdsworth and Plucknett, has been to trace the evolution of legal institutions, procedures and doctrine. Consideration of arbitration has at best been regarded as peripheral to this central task.

Failed Arbitrations before the Court of Common Pleas: Cases Relating to London and Londoners, 1400–1468

“…Taking issue with these sentiments, Powell has argued convincingly that informal methods of settling disputes flourished, and well established methods of arbitration already existed, at the end of the fourteenth century. 60 Likewise, Biancalana has recently argued that the use of arbitration was 'frequent' both before and after the fifteenth century as 'perceived shortcomings' of judicial institutions persisted, stating succinctly that 'the view that fifteenth-century arbitration is evidence of inadequacies in the common law judicial institutions particular to the fifteenth century states either a falsehood or a truism'. 61 Lacking a body of statistical data to draw on, Powell responded to Storey, Bellamy and Rowney's perceived 'growth of evidence for arbitration' in the fifteenth century by suggesting that while recourse to arbitration was constant throughout the century, 'compromise procedures became both more formal and better documented .…”

“…63 Powell was correct to observe that this would have strongly influenced the contents of those private document collections of noble families which were extensively used by, and informed the opinions of, historians such as Storey. 64 For example, in the Common Pleas, the proportion of generic writs of debt on a bond among London-related cases extracted for the LATL project rose from thirty-five per cent of all cases in 1399 -1409 to fifty-five per cent in 1460 -68, while the number of writs brought on undocumented transactions decreased. 65 However, whereas we might expect an increasing tendency to document significant events such as arbitrations to bring more compromissio bonds and written arbitration awards before the Common Pleas, the proportion of cases citing arbitration declined between 1399 and 1468.…”

“…[as] a product of the increasingly legalistic environment'. 62 In brief, Powell's suggestion was that disputants did not employ arbitration more frequently in the mid fifteenth century, but simply began to document more frequently arbitration procedures and settlements.…”

Contracting Innovations and the Evolution of Clearing and Settlement Methods at Futures Exchanges

“…For similar instances, see Powell's (1984) description of the development of arbitration in England.…”