Definition
In historical English pleading practice, pledges were the sureties named by a plaintiff at the outset of a civil action, guaranteeing that the plaintiff would prosecute the suit in good faith. Their names appeared at the foot of the declaration (the plaintiff's initial pleading). If the plaintiff abandoned the suit or judgment was rendered against him for a false claim, both the plaintiff and his pledges were liable to amercement — a financial penalty payable to the Crown described as pro falso clamore (for a false claim). Over time, the requirement became entirely fictitious and ceremonial, eventually disappearing from practice altogether.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Simply the plural of "pledge" — promises, commitments, or something given as security.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A surety or security; a person who becomes responsible for another; something delivered as a guarantee of performance.
The common meaning of "pledge" as security or surety overlaps with the historical legal use, but the legal term "pledges" in the context of pleading refers specifically to a procedural requirement of the old common-law declaration — not a genuine security arrangement. A researcher encountering "pledges" appended to an old declaration should not interpret them as real sureties who undertook any enforceable obligation.
Common Confusion
Pledges in pleading should not be confused with pledge as a substantive legal concept in property or commercial law — the bailment of personal property as security for a debt or obligation. The two uses share etymological roots and the concept of suretyship, but they operate in entirely different legal contexts. A researcher finding "pledges" in an old declaration is encountering procedural formality; a researcher finding "pledge" in a commercial or equity context is dealing with a security interest in property. Historical dictionaries sometimes place both usages in close proximity, which can mislead.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with pre-nineteenth-century English pleading records, or with early American common-law court documents modeled on English practice, will encounter "pledges" appended to declarations in the form of names — typically John Doe and Richard Roe — listed without explanation. These are not parties to the case, not witnesses, and not genuine sureties. They are procedural artifacts whose presence signals that the document follows the older formal declaration structure.
The key research trap: if you encounter unfamiliar names at the foot of a declaration and cannot identify them as parties or counsel, they are almost certainly fictitious pledges. Do not attempt to trace them as real individuals.
The timeline matters. The requirement for real pledges faded well before it was formally abolished. By the time John Doe and Richard Roe became the universal placeholders, no court expected real persons to stand behind the names. Once pleading reforms arrived — particularly with the Field Code in New York (1848) and analogous reforms in England — the declaration form itself disappeared, taking pledges with it. Researchers working with post-reform American pleading will not encounter them in practice documents.
Corpus connections: pledges in pleading appear alongside related fictitious-person conventions, particularly the use of John Doe and Richard Roe in the action of ejectment. These are distinct procedural fictions serving different functions, but they share the same reform-era fate.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries converge cleanly on this term. Black's Law Dictionary emphasizes the liability dimension — that both plaintiff and pledges were subject to amercement pro falso clamore — and notes that the names eventually became fictitious persons. Bouvier's Law Dictionary is the most detailed, explaining the placement of pledges' names at the foot of the declaration, their surety function, the obsolescence of real amercement liability, and the universal adoption of John Doe and Richard Roe as substitutes, adding that the names could also simply be omitted. Anderson's Dictionary of Law dispenses with independent treatment entirely, redirecting the reader to DOE — a telling editorial choice that confirms how thoroughly the substantive content of "pledges" had collapsed into the John Doe fiction by the time Anderson wrote.
None of the historical sources provide much guidance on when exactly real pledges gave way to fictitious ones, or on the variation in American colonial and early state practice. Researchers needing that granularity will need to look beyond the dictionary shelf to legal history scholarship and primary pleading manuals.
Jurisdictional Note
Pledges in the pleading sense were a feature of English common-law procedure and were carried into American colonial and early state courts that followed the English declaration form. Their abolition in America varied by jurisdiction but was generally accomplished through the same nineteenth-century pleading reform movements that abolished the common-law forms of action. Researchers working with civil law jurisdictions will not encounter this concept.