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RECORD.
Record, is derived of recorder to remember, as the Poet saith, si ritè audita recorder, if a Record once say the word, no man shall be received to averr or speak against it, or impugne the same, no, though such record contain a manifest or known falsehood, tending to the mischief, and overthrow of any person.
The Records are vetustatis & veritatis vestigia,* 1.1 the lively representations of time and truth, and reputed the Treasures of the Kingdom.
The Kings excellency is so high in the* 1.2 Law, that no Frce-hold may be given to the King, nor derived from him but by matter of Record.
A Record or sufficient matter in writing are* 1.3 good memorials, for litera scripta manet. And therefore it is said when we will by a••y Record or Writing commit the memory of any thing to posterity, it is said tradare memoriae. And this is the reason that regularly a man cannot prescribe or alledge a custom against a Statute, because that is matter of Record.
Record is a memoriall or remembrance in Rolls of Parchment, of the Proceedings and Acts of a Court of Justice, which hath power to hold plea according to the course of the Common Law, of reall or m••xt actions, or of actions quare vi & armis, or of such personall actions, whereof the debt or dammage amounts to forty shillings or above, which we call Courts of Record, and are created by Parliament, Letters Patents, or prescription, legally Records are rostrained to* 1.4 the Rolls of such only as are Courts of Record, and not Rolls of inferiour, nor of any other Courts which proceed not secundum legem & con∣suetudinem