For the reading this week I was struck by the vast number of courts with overlapping jurisdictions that existed in Medieval England and how independent and in competition with one another they appeared to be. In Chapter 2 "The Origins of Common Law" Baker lists that there were three centralized courts of common law (the Court of Common Please, The King's Bench, and The Court of the Exchequer) along with a multitude of local courts (Assizes, moots, manor courts, etc.) The ability of one court to review the work of another court seemed somewhat limited to me in comparison to today.

In such a system I was wondering what were the formal and informal mechanisms for ensuring a the consistent application of the same common law in each court? Were there many examples of forum shopping in such a system?

-- MichaelCoburn - 09 Sep 2014