Wilhs: Anglo-American Law 
99 
haps not until the nineteenth century. In the Strict Period 
at least it was confined to distress cases. Ejectment was 
originally an action in personam called ejectione firmae by 
which tenants for years could recover possession against 
ejectors not claiming thru the landlord. This action was free 
from the technicalities of the real actions, and gradually came 
into use to escape them by the device of a formal entry and 
lease to a tenant so that he could sue in ejectment after he 
was ousted by the claimant in possession. By Elizabeth’s time 
ejectment had almost supplanted the real actions. The next 
step in the development of ejectment was the use of fictitious 
persons as the tenant plaintiff and defendant casual ejector. 
At first no notice was required to the tenant in possession 
tho the casual ejector was a friend of the plaintiff and a 
stranger to the property; but later the rule was established 
that the tenant in possession had to be given notice and by 
the time of the Protectorate the courts required him as a 
condition to being admitted to intervene to admit the lease, 
entry, and ouster, leaving the question of title the only ques- 
tion to be litigated. But the courts held that the judgment 
in ejectment was not binding between the real parties because 
in form between fictitious. The whole scheme was an ab- 
surd make-believe as silly as a nursery game, but it well 
illustrates the character of the law in the Strict Period. 
Other illustrations of the rigidity of the law in the Strict 
Period are found in the law of the contract under seal . 31 
The common law regarded this not as evidence of the contract 
but the contract itself. Accordingly, if the obligee had lost 
the instrument, or it was destroyed, he had no action, for 
a Year Book judge said, “If the specialty is lost the whole 
action is lost .” 32 Likewise if an obligor had executed an 
instrument because of fraud, or for immoral purposes, or 
upon an assumption in the offer which was not true, or even 
if he had once paid the same, if he had neglected to take a 
release or have the instrument destroyed, he was helpless. 
Such technicality cried for relief, and it was such technicalities 
which brought the Court of Chancery into existence. The 
31 Still further illustrations of the strictness of the law of contracts of the Strict 
Period are found in the law of that period as to conditions ; as to discharge by sur- 
render by accord, by payment by a stranger, by alteration, by merger, and by arbi- 
tration ; as to assignment ; and as to the right of third party beneficiaries. 
32 Y.B. 24 Ed. Ill, p. 24, pi. 1. 
