Help with Court of Common Pleas entry

[sunnylew]

Can anyone help me with the below Court of Common Please entry?

The description is:

Flowerdewe, Humphrey, gent
v.
Sheres, Edmund, of Hethersett, gent; Costerden, Lawrence, of Refeham, yeoman

The link to the original image on WAALT is:

http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT4/Eliz/CP40no1422/aCP40no1422fronts/IMG_0284.htm

[Vance Mead]

Norfolk. Humphrey Flowerdewe, gent, by his attorney, presents himself on the fourth day versus Edmund Sheres, of Hethersett, gent; and Lawrence Costerden, of Refeham, yeoman, for a debt of 20 pounds from either of them. They did not come and the sheriff is ordered to arrest them and bring them to court on the octave of the Purification of St Mary.

[Vance Mead]

I should explain about "on the fourth day" which occurs in so many of these entries. The defendant was given a day to come to court and respond, usually the octave (eighth day) or quindene (fifteenth day) after a holy day. So, for example, the quindene of Easter was the Monday two weeks after Easter. They were then given three days' grace, so that the entry was written up on the Thursday, the fourth day. If the defendant answered in the first three days of the week, then it was written up in a different form, with his response to the plaintiff.

[sunnylew]

Thank you Vance.

I appreciate the info about Court procedure as well. Is there a good book or website you know of that goes into the different procedures?

When it says "from either of them" does that mean that one was a guarantor for the other, or there was a multipart Indenture of some kind?

I've noticed from the indexes that in some cases there are five or six people being prosecuted. Does this mean they all went in together on a big loan?

[Vance Mead]

There might be several different debts being collected at the same time, or there might be one or more people acting as guarantors of the loan. There isn't much detail in this entry. There might be more information if the defendants came to respond. Most cases got dropped somewhere along the way, because the defendant paid the debt, there was an agreement by arbitration, or the plaintiff simply gave up.

A good book on the subject is John Baker, Introduction to English Legal History. There are several editions.

[sunnylew]

Thanks again Vance.

I'll get a copy of that book. I'm sure much will be over my head, but it'll help me understand the other various forms of trespass etc.  It's available for about £5 in many places

That makes a lot of sense in regards to the info being included when the case actually occurs. I've noticed that some cases keep on coming back, or others only show up once, with very little entered at all, so those latter ones must be examples where it was settled.

The above case comes back second from the bottom here:

http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT4/Eliz/CP40no1422/bCP40no1422dorses/IMG_0734.htm

I don't suppose I could impose on you to get the gist of this one?

[Vance Mead]

Baker's writing style is clear and straightforward, so he makes the subject matter pretty easy to understand.

There's not much new in the second entry. Same case, they didn't show up, and now are being threatened with outlawry if they don't respond.

[sunnylew]

Thanks again Vance. That's really helpful.