Writs De Minis and Supplicavit: The History of Surety of the Peace

Abstract

The origin of surety of the peace may be traced back to those individual grants of peace by which the king took into his special protection subjects who had been openly threatened and were in imminent danger. The earliest surviving evidence of the individual grants of peace by which the king took into his special protection subjects who had complained of being openly threatened by a named individual comes from the writ de minis found in the so-called Luffield Register, a register of writs dating from the 1260s. In the fourteenth century, a writ de minis in a new form appears, known by its first word supplicavit , in which the king takes a more active role as protector of his special peace. The contemporary plea rolls and petitions, provide illumination in respect of formulas used in the writs de minis and supplicavit and thus a better understanding of the institution. Keywords: de minis ; petitions; plea rolls; supplicavit ; surety of the peace