— 
EARLY SHERIFF Court Book or DUMFRIES. 589 
of litigation was embraced by them.!” They ran in a fixed 
form, which, according to a statue of 1491,!8 might not be 
varied under pain of nullity. Some of them were styled 
““retourable,’’ because the verdict upon them was returned 
to the chancery by the judge to whom they were directed ; 
while those which were not retourable served as the initiation 
of actions against special defenders to be insisted on before 
the judge to whom they were addressed. It may be that, as 
in England,! a brieve was not indispensable where the subject 
of the action was of trifling value or amount; and it is not 
unlikely that, as Kames suggests,”° the Sheriffs, without any 
statutory warrant, modelled their procedure upon that of the 
Lords of the Session?!—a usurpation of jurisdiction which, as 
it met a public need, may have gradually received the sanction 
of custom.” 
Where the matter of the suit was one of civil debt or 
contract, or related to moveables, the first step was to attach 
the goods of the defender until he found security that he would 
appear and answer to the complaint ;% and the complainer was 
also required to find security that he would insist in his 
action.“4. The summons was then served on the defender, who 
might excuse” himself thrice, on finding a cautioner in support 
17 Td. ab., p. 223. 
18 ¢.5; Fol. Acts, i1., 224. 
19 Pollock and Maitland, op. cit., i., 553 f. It was only where 
a personal action related to a sum reaching or exceeding 40s that a 
brieve was necessary. 
20 Kames, ‘‘ History of Brieves,’’ Historical Law Tracts, Edin- 
burgh, 1758, ii., p. 14. He observes that ‘‘a Court, which has 
often tried cases by a delegated jurisdiction, loses sight in time of 
its warrant, and ventures to try such cases by its own authority.” 
21 An enactment of 1457 (c., 2; Fol. Acts, ii., 47-8) invested the 
lords of the session with an independent jurisdiction in actions for 
debt. 
22 Kames, loc. cit. 
23 Quon. Attach., c., 1; Fol. Acts, i., 647. 
24 Stat. Reg., Alexandri II., ¢., ii; Fol. Acts, i., 402; Balfour, 
op. cit., pp. 290, 311. 
25~Absence on the King’s service, or at a public fair, or by 
reason of “‘ bed-evil and infirmitie’’ (‘‘infirmitas lecti’’) was ad- 
